The Willow Branch

by Lela Markham

  Geran stared at him, glancing back and forth between the herbman’s face and the pouch in his hand.

  “Aye, well, I did think mayhap you were cheating me, but I could afford it more than you and I could not prove it, mind.”

  “Nay, it would have been hard to prove, but I knew what I was doing. I ask you to take my payment so that I might be clean before you.”

  “Of course. And there will be no more said of this,” Geran said, putting the pouch within his siarc. ‘Tis an honorable thing you have done. Few men would have.”

  “Aye, well, stealing from you was not honorable. I thank you for your forgiveness.”

  “We’ll speak no more of it. Will you stay for a meal and a night under my roof?” For him to offer that meant that he had truly forgiven the crime.

  “Nay. I’ve business in Clarcom. I’m pleased you were here for me to speak with you.”

  “I’ll not delay you, but know this, Padraig. You’re always welcome at my gate and by my fire. I’d stake you a winter if you have need.”

  “I thank you,” Padraig said. “Currently I have no such need, but I’ll remember your invitation if ever I do.”

  Geran walked him to the gate and waved him along. Padraig reached the town gates before he remembered the young page who’d piqued his curiosity. Naught to do about it! Padraig turned south for Clarcom. He’d left Trevellyn too late to make the next village by nightfall, but he found a copse of trees not far from a Temple of the Moon in which he decided to camp.

  The dark night with only starlight for illumination meant naught to a man of the Denygal. Padraig gathered wood and collected water without hesitation, for the night seemed no darker than dusk to his eyes. He ate a scant meal of bread and cheese and watered ale, then sat by the fire sipping tea for mayhap a watch. He’d just rolled into his blankets by the dying fire when he heard a twig snap off in the trees.

  Padraig’s eyes immediately opened, but he didn’t move more than enough to put his hand on the hilt of his long knife, which lay beside his blankets. He scanned the trees, at first seeing naught, but then he made out a figure crouched in the trees. He waited, unmoving. He saw the figure turn and trot back toward the Temple of the Moon. As he watched the figure of a woman, dressed in the cowl and robe of a priest, disappear into the shadow of the Temple, Padraig threw out his mind to see what he might Sense, finding merely curiosity and a satisfaction of that. He closed his eyes and went right to sleep.

  In his dream, Padraig saw a room that reminded him a great deal of a cave, except that the walls were dressed stone, rather than living rock. He saw no windows and only a small door. In the middle of this cell, a woman sat on the floor. She wore a brown robe and cowl and her dark hair was cropped short like a lad’s. On the floor between her knees rested a bowl of water and she stirred the water with a finger. As he watched he saw himself rolled in his blankets, sleeping. She smiled and Padraig awoke with a thud of his heart.

  Sitting up in the darkness, heart pounding within his chest, Padraig fought down panic. He’d never known that there were seers, let alone female seers, this side of the border who could scry out a man they’d never met in the flesh. He swallowed agitation. As calmness slowly worked its way back into his soul, he heard something just on the edge of consciousness. He stared in the direction of the temple.

  Is that screaming?

  Padraig did not sleep well the rest of the night. When he rode out at dawn, he knew he would remember the experience at the temple for a long time to come, though he truly did not know what to think of it.

  Kin Cycle 24578/ FY 1028

  Blue Iris Holt - Spring

  The horses and goats were restless. Ryanna could sense their alert. It might be the spring weather, exciting the animals with its promise of rain and warmth. Or it could be a predator.

  “Are you feeling somewhat?” Melim asked. As a horse drover, he knew the herds better than Ryanna, but he also knew she had skills he didn’t possess.

  “There is tension in the air,” she replied, keeping her voice dark and soft. The horses were used to hearing Melim’s male voice and it wouldn’t do to spook them with a lighter tone.

  “Chela says you can do more than just feel excitement on the air. I can do that. Do you Sense somewhat I cannot know?”

  Ryanna smiled at him. Melim was a half-elf like herself, tall and dark haired with human features. Well, so long as he kept his hair over his ears because those were a bit peaked for a round-ear. Among her father’s people, Melim would be considered handsome, as she was considered beautiful, but here in the elfholts, neither of them was that remarkable except for being a minority. Among a race with godlike beauty that could last 600 years, they were barely attractive.

  Ryanna relaxed into her saddle, casting out her Sensing, trying to find somewhat that wasn’t goat or horse or elven drover. She’d been asked by the Wise to investigate what had beset the herds and stop it if she could. As she Delved, she bumped up against Sabre’s consciousness, that bundle of energy that was often near, but rarely beside her.

  “Do you smell aught?” she asked.

  I’m not a nose hound, Sabre replied. She sent a thorn of annoyance down the bond and he sent back a mental growl. I’m investigating.

  Ryanna returned to her Sensing. What was that she Sensed on the rise toward the holt? Something furtive and stealthy. She focused more tightly, but still whatever it was eluded her Sensing.

  “Over there, where the mountain goes up toward the holt, I think there’s somewhat there.”

  They were speaking Celdryan because it was a language they didn’t get to use daily and they both knew it. It was good practice.

  Melim scanned the darkness. Like most half-elves, he could see in low-light, but not near-darkness as full elves could. Ryanna was similarly handicapped, but she had resources Melim lacked. Sabre sent to her.

  Move the herd away from the mountain. Then there came a fantasy of huge cats with fangs dripping saliva.

  “Move the herd away from the mountainside,” Ryanna suggested. While she prepared a spear for hunting, Melim signaled the other drovers. Ryanna urged her horse forward, spear held loosely in her right hand, scanning the lower slopes of the mountain for movement. At first she saw only brush and dark shadows, but then she spied movement. She Sensed that furtiveness again, but this time there was no aire of fear or trepidation. These are big cats!

  With that thought, she cocked back her arm and threw the spear in a flat, expertly aimed flight. At the last possible moment, the cat she’d struck for flipped back into the shadows amongst the bushes and the hunt was on. Ryanna had lots of spears. She drew another out from under her leg and kicked her horse to a charge. The third dart she threw finally struck home – she saw a figure slump to the ground just as she swerved to chase another cat.

  Her horse shied sideways, neighing nervously as Sabre sent a warning. Somewhere a cat yowled, cut short in an instant, but then one of the cats launched itself at the flank of her horse and Ryanna realized that she had become the prey.

  The darkness made exact estimates impossible, but there were at least a dozen cats and they all seemed to have turned to stalk her.

  These are no ordinary mountain cats, Sabre reported.

  Ryanna’s horse reared then, nearly unseating her. She smelled blood and then the horse bolted in terror. She jerked hard on the reins and turned, but this told her only that she was being followed by a pack. She heard the bleat of a nanny goat somewhere off to one side and then she jumped clear as her horse suddenly stumbled and fell.

  Ryanna tucked, rolling back up onto her feet and pulling her hunting bow free of where it lay across her back. As cats raced toward her, she expertly braced the bow against her leg, pulled the string into place, nocked an arrow and let fly. One arrow for each cat, but they were still getting closer, springing in athletic bounds across rocks and open ground. Just when she thought she might run out of arrows, Sabre sent a warning – Look up and to the left – and as she did, a c
at came down at her from the mountain side. She left off drawing arrows to use her bow as a club, drawing her long-knife in the other hand. Cats circled her, hissing, striking with huge paws and dagger-like claws. She returned the swipes with thrusts of the long knife, showing them that she had claws of her own. Cats circled in behind her, trying to take out her legs. She beat them back with the bow.

  The cats suddenly broke off, scattering, as the drovers came charging up swinging torches and howling like something out of the Celtman legends. Ryanna ignored their work and turned to her horse. He’d been hamstrung and now lay on his side breathing heavily, having given up trying to rise. Ryanna patted his neck.

  “I’m sorry, friend, but this is a kindness.”

  She drew the long knife across the horse’s throat and the breathing immediately stopped. Ryanna patted his ears and spoke soothing words while all around her the drovers ran off the cats. The horse passed just as the drovers drew up around her.

  “Dawn’s almost here,” Melim noted. “Thanks you for what you did. Now that we know what’s taking the goats, we can fight them.” He spoke in Elvish since the other drovers were Kin.

  “Yes,” Ryanna agreed. “Well, that was exciting. Not everyday you get to sympathize with a vole.”

  The drovers all laughed. Ryanna began removing tack from the horse preparatory to dressing the carcass. The meat would be a relief at this end of winter. Several of the drovers moved off to patrol the herds, but Melim and another elf stayed to help her dress the horse and provide protection should the cats come back.

  With dawn’s early light, they walked over to the place where she’d struck her first cat and found a large male with paws as wide as Ryanna’s hands were long.

  “It looks like an ordinary mountain cat,” Melim observed.

  “Except for being truly big and not acting like a predator around man.”

  “Yes. They seemed to know that you were the huntress and they all focused on you. Well, look at that.”

  The early morning light showed Sabre dragging a cat into their area. The large black dog had clearly severed its windpipe.

  I see the perennial war between cats and dogs continues, Ryanna sent.

  It tried to kill me, Sabre retorted.

  “Have you ever seen wild cats act like that before?” Ryanna asked Melim.

  “No, not ever. That was more the behavior of a wolf pack. Cats are usually solitary.”

  Ryanna nodded, feeling that shovel of snow slide down her back again. What is walking in the world, Lord? Her only answer was another shudder.

  Green Eyes

  Some say the Temple of the Moon came from Gawl, that women there were equal to men. Some say the practice sprung up here when women objected to the priests drawing us away from the Old Faith’s raw worship to more civilized forms. I cannot say which of these theories is correct, but I must say that the Moon is at its strongest in its dark phase.

  Dagvyn, priest of Bel, FY 834

  Founding Year (FY) 931

  High Celdrya - Spring

  Rule isn’t easy, Perryn ap Trevellyan recognized. Of course, his tutors had mentioned it wouldn’t be, back when ruling had merely been a theory for the spare heir. The men round the council table were acting not as his liegemen, but as rivals, making decisions that he had not authorized as if it were their right to do so. How did my father do it? Did Maryn know they would do this when he ascended? Or is it that they know I am the spare heir or do they try all new lords such?

  “You ordered the burning of an entire village?” Perryn asked, just to assure that he had heard Burcan rightly. The words invoked rage in him. He could almost smell the burning flesh and hear the scream of children as they were forced back into the flames by men wearing Manahan colors. Stay your hand! You can’t kill him in the council chambers. Even the king cannot indulge every fantasy.

  “Aye, my lord,” Burcan answered smartly. “The assassins were found in the inn. I took decisive action to assure that all the assassins would be eliminated immediately.”

  Burcan might be married to Perryn’s sister, but Perryn had little knowledge of him. He’d met the man only twice before and spoken only ceremonial words with him. He couldn’t tell if the man were lying. Burning an entire village to eliminate the killers, even of the king, seemed overmuch. Maintain calm!

  “I did not authorize that,” Perryn reminded him. He spoke in a mild voice, just loudly enough to be heard.

  Burcan subsided into stammering while the other lords turned their gazes upon their young liege. Perryn could feel his cheeks growing hot beneath his soft, short-cropped beard. He remembered discussions with his tutors about establishing authority early in his rule, should he ever rule. He’d not paid sufficient attention, he realized. In his heart, he’d always accepted that Maryn would rule and he would be the war leader. Perryn felt as if he were lecturing his elders, but he was their liege and he had to establish that relationship early … now … before the day was done.

  “Please explain to me why you would take such an extraordinary action against innocent people without allowing me to make the decision?”

  “Sire, you were not the king yet,” Gerriant of Fyrgal said.

  “I was the apparent king the moment my father died,” Perryn insisted, his voice controlled as his rage hammered against his ribs.

  “Sire, I mean no disrespect. Prince Maryn would have been king the moment your father died, but you are untried,” Joran of eastern Mulyn explained. He was Burcan’s twin and except for a scar along his cheek there was no telling them apart. Both were bluff men, bold and loud, and both were married to Perryn’s sisters. If Joran expected Perryn to look away in trepidation, he was disappointed. “You wear the crown only because the vyngretroix board had not time to vet you between deaths.”

  Perryn allowed himself a beat, the barest of breaths, before responding. A Trevellyn had sat upon the throne for almost a millennium. Every time the line of succession was broken, the vyngretroix deliberated and suggested a possible change in leadership, but they always ended up installing the next in line of Clan Trevellyn. The vyngretroix were a holdover from Gawl where each tribe had been ruled by their own village-king, but only one king had passed through the portal and he’d been a Trevellyn.

  “And, yet, they installed me officially this morning,” he reminded the vygretroix gathered here. This was not the full council, but merely those lords who were involved in the assassination investigation. He needed these men to conduct the business of the kingdom, but there was a fine line between mutual cooperation and treason.

  Steady, man! You cannot afford to fling a spear awry just now.

  “It is true that I am untried. However, I was raised with the possibility of rule and I am the king. We will move on because there is no way to recall the flames and the innocent lives lost.

  “Innocent?” Burcan queried, his voice laden with shock. “Sire, that village harbored assassins. There are none innocent in such congress.”

  “Surely there were children in that village,” Perryn shot back. He timed it for Joran taking a sip of mead and was pleased when the vyngretrix choked on his swallow. Burcan turned a bit pale. Like many lords, he led from a distance and mayhap had not considered the possibility of innocents in a village where assassins might be found. All here had been elder sons, born to rule. None had been a war leader passing by the villages that bore the brunt of noblemen’s wars.

  “Are you absolutely certain that the threat of the assassins has been eliminated?” Perryn continued.

  The men round the council table traded questioning looks. Perryn waited.

  “We believe so, sire,” Gerriant said. “It’s hard to be perfectly certain with men of this sort, but the ones in the inn were the only ones our investigation revealed.”

  “And you took none prisoner, so did not question any,” Perryn said. It wasn’t a question. He knew the answer.

  “Sire, these men would not tell the truth and allowing them to live would only have
wasted time,” Burcan insisted.

  “Aye, of course. Questioning an assassin about who hired him wouldn’t reveal anything of worth.” The more clever of the gathered nobles shifted, made nervous by the quiet sarcasm in his tone.

  “Sire,” Dumyr said. “The assassins guild trains their agents well. You must recognize that among that training is the ability to resist torture.”

  “Of course,” Perryn agreed, deferring to his chief council on that point. He did not allow interruption, promptly continuing his thought. “Still, it might have been worthwhile to at least attempt the questioning.” He allowed himself a moment to seem to be marshalling his thoughts. “Given this misunderstanding, I am requiring that all of you report to me according to this matter and make no hasty decisions without consultation.” They looked shocked. “I realize that my father gave you more free rein and surely I will do so once we’ve established things, but for now, all matters having to do with capital punishment must be brought before me in my court of justice.”

  “Even within our own lands?” Malik of Blyan asked, voice weak.

  I’ve just been gifted by the gods!

  “If that seems wise to you, then aye, within your demesnes.”

  They realized that they’d just been tricked, but what could they do but comply now that their liege had so ordered? There were murmured “of course, my liege,” and large swallows of the drink at hand. The uneasy relationship between the vyngretroix board and the king had just taken on a less settled tone and Perryn thought that he might be emerging the victor here.

  Easy, man. A war is won one battle at a time, but rarely does a single stroke win a battle.

  “Are we any closer to discovering who killed my brother and the king?” Perryn asked, though he knew the answer.

  “Nay, my liege,” Dumyr the councilor said. “We will, of course, continue the investigation. Will Lord Deryk remain the war band leader?”