The House of the Stag

by Kage Baker

  “I have gifts for you, Child,” he announced. “And wonders to tell you. Call our people together!”

  “That would take awhile,” said Seni. “There are more new children than white flowers on the dancing green these days, Lendreth.”

  That astonished him, and so did the Saint’s being now a woman grown, when he noticed it. He had to settle for all the disciples that could be called in from the garden, and two visiting trevanion. When they sat together before the Saint’s little house, he leaned forward and spoke.

  “Brothers and sisters, when I left you, I thought the world was two green valleys and a river—this place, and the other from which we came. I never thought the world was so big, but I have come back to tell you that our long prison was an eggshell, a tiny world, and we walking forth were only little birds that had never flown.

  “Believe me when I say that I walked for long weeks across fields of corn, wild yellow meadows no slave ever labored in, and in the midst of them there was no limit, no edge to the horizon. Beyond them rise more forests, like these but bigger, great high trees such as I have not seen since my childhood before the Riders came.

  “Beyond these forests is a black mountain that rises against the moon, and a place where rivers are born and drop in rainbows down its sides, fives times taller than any we saw when we walked free at last. They come down to the yellow plain and roll away to the sea, rivers so wide you could not sling a stone across, great waters that make the river of our birth seem nothing.

  “I traveled for years in the wild, seeing only demons there. And then, one night, I came upon a made fire in a clearing, low coals and low flames. About it lay men and women, far gone in fever. Their skins were red as fire. Two or three tried to rise and spoke to me in threatening voices. But I sang them the Song to Ease Fear; I drew water and eased their thirst, I brewed medicines for them. Three days and three nights I stayed there, and by the third day they were well again.

  “They piled little pieces of gold before me, and knelt, and said by gestures that I should go with them. So we went a day’s walk, and we came to a hall made of stone, with smoke going up from it.”

  “Oh, fool! These were Riders!” cried one of the trevanion, scandalized.

  “They were not,” said Lendreth. “Do you think I wouldn’t know them if I saw them again? A bat flies, and a bird flies, but they are not the same creature. The red people lived in a beautiful hall. There were no slave pits stinking under their feet, no stables where beasts were kept. But their dying lay everywhere in that place. Some had already died and lay still where they had fallen, for the others were too sick to bury them.

  “There were wonders there I wouldn’t know how to describe to you, but the strangest of all was that medicine grew all around their fine hall, on the waste ground where they had cut down trees, and yet they didn’t know it would have saved them—”

  “They cut down trees,” said the trevani who had spoken before. “So did the Riders, Lendreth.”

  “They were not Riders,” said the Saint. “Go on, please, Lendreth. Did you save them?”

  “Child, I did,” said Lendreth, looking gratefully at her. “It would take seven nights to tell you everything I saw and everything I did there, but I lived among them a year, and I learned to speak their words. They call themselves the Children of the Sun. They are reasoning people like we are, nothing like the Riders, certainly nothing like demons!”

  “I know of them,” said the Saint. “A little. I’m glad you saved them, Lendreth.” The trevanion turned to stare at her.

  “I knew it would have been your will,” said Lendreth in triumph. He reached for the sack he had carried and opened the top. He brought out things wrapped in fine red cloth, opening them one after another.

  “They took me to one of their communities. Smooth straight ways to walk in, beautiful high houses, glorious bright lamps by night and by day, light coming in through windows set with crystal like sheets of clear ice! Look, look here, this is only a toy for children, but there are big ones made, and people travel in them, they roll along from a mechanism under them that men work with levers. And, see this? This is a book with their writing in it, but it’s all stamped like cloth patterns, every page. And here are more of their pieces of gold—they used them to trade—and here is a little model of one of their famous buildings, there was a man selling these outside the real one, and I brought one back so you could see how beautiful their houses are.”

  “It is all very brightly colored,” said one of the trevanion rather grudgingly.

  “This is nothing to what you would see if you were there,” said Lendreth. “There are walls and houses painted every color. You can walk a mile down one of their ways and see no white thing but the seabirds overhead. Here’s a wonder, though, look at this! Child, this is for you. A paradox: no color, and yet all colors.”

  Lendreth drew forth something that sparkled. It was a pitcher. It seemed to be made of clear ice, cut and faceted in patterns, perilous beauty, throwing out brilliant lights edged with rainbows.

  The Saint caught her breath. Slowly, she put out her hand and touched it.

  Later, when the other trevanion had gone, she went into her house and brought out the flat wooden case the runner had been carrying. “This has their writing on it.” She held it out to Lendreth. “Can you tell me what it says?”

  He took it and frowned over the scrawled characters.

  “This is a salutation. ‘To—’ Hmmm, hmmm, the next word means a kind of leader. ‘Duke Strake of, the house of, Firechain.’ Then the message, I think. ‘Worthy’ or perhaps that would be ‘Honored Firechain, your—’ I think the next word is ‘son’ or ‘daughter.’ Hmmmm, no, no, it’s ‘son.’ ‘Your son is dead.’ Oh. Er, ‘We have withdrawn to the—’ Hmmm, ‘house with walls’? ‘Strong house’? Something like that. ‘Duke … Duke Salting—’ The next word is, er, either ‘assails’ or ‘attacks’ or … let’s say ‘attacks us, with the sunrise. Please come with … with all your …’ I don’t know what this word means, it’s like a plural for ‘men.’ ‘Many men’? ‘Come very quickly. We will all’—oh, dear—‘all die here soon.’ “ Lendreth lowered his eyes and closed the case.

  “They are not entirely reasoning people, are they?” said the Saint.

  “They can be quarrelsome. I meant to tell you about that later.”

  When she looked into his eyes and bid him speak frankly, he had to admit that in fact the Children of the Sun were given to vicious wars among their great families. Moreover, despite their brilliant inventions, they were ignorant of any medicine but the repair of battlefield injuries.

  “There are other peculiarities,” said Lendreth. “They love beautiful things—I saw no surface that was not decorated, in some way—and yet I saw no single tree nor blade of grass in their cities. But this ignorance, Child, is to our advantage!”

  She frowned at him. He turned his head hastily. “Why should we take advantage of them?” she asked.

  “I meant rather, that it will be to our advantage to help them. We can trade with them, knowledge for knowledge. They make wonderful tools of good metal—not the brown kind the Riders made, but hard and bright, in colors like the sun and the moon! A mattock or a hoe made of it would keep its edge for days of use. They make vessels of it too, unbreakable, unleaking.

  “They might be persuaded to make them for us, in return for medicines. They suffer from fevers. They have nothing to ease pain except a drink that intoxicates them. They eat things which would kill us, and frequently kill them. The filth of their cities drains into the water they drink.”

  “Have they no one to teach them better?” the Saint said, dismayed.

  “None. No trevanion walk among them. They have many spirits they believe in, whom they call the gods, but so far as I was able to learn they believe the gods to be people like themselves, given to quarrels and lusts. There is no wisdom, no perception of the Infinite. There are no Songs.”

  “Then we must give th
em the Songs!”

  “With respect, Child,” said Lendreth, keeping his eyes lowered from her face, “I think there are none among them able to learn the Songs. Not yet. Perhaps, if we give them the benefit of our wisdom a little at a time—and ask them for bright metal in return, and other things perhaps—then we will come to know whether it is safe to teach the Songs to them.”

  The Saint set her hand on Lendreth’s chin, lifting his face so he must look into her eyes, and saw the truth. “They sent you back, asking you to bring them more healers.”

  “Yes,” he said, squinting, not daring to look away.

  “Then we will send them healers, out of compassion. And we will ask for nothing in return. Go among the trevanion and find the younger ones, the ones who are still learning new things. Take them back with you. Let them walk among the Children of the Sun and teach them how to make gardens for medicine, if nothing else.”

  “It will be done,” said Lendreth, drawing back the moment she released him. He shook himself, looked aside. “You are a woman now,” he said at last. “I had not understood.”

  “You do now.”

  He bowed and walked quickly away from her. She stood, looking after him, reflecting on what she had seen in his thoughts: the pride, the restlessness, the eager ambition. She saw what he had not spoken aloud: that he saw her people now as a small nation, woefully poor and backward. She saw his dream of raising a great city in the forest, like the ones in which the red folk lived, but cleaner, and loftier, making a civilization to surpass that of the Children of the Sun.

  Most clearly, she saw that he had made this bright illusion to fill the hole in his heart where faith had never grown. The darkness of chaos frightened him. Orderly plans kept him from having to contemplate it.

  “Child, the trevanion are here to speak with you,” Seni told her. The Saint smiled a little; she was twenty now, and only Seni and Kdwyr addressed her as Child anymore.

  “Which ones?”

  “Shafwyr and Jish and Vendyll,” Seni replied, with just the suggestion of a disdainful sniff. “They’re waiting for you in the apple bower. They’ve come a long way, it seems.”

  “They will be thirsty, then. Would you bring out the green pitcher, and the cups that go with it?” The Saint rose from her loom.

  “The dragonfly pattern? If you wish, Child.”

  The three were sitting in silence under the great apple tree, looking about them with dissatisfaction, but they rose and bowed to the Saint when she came to them.

  “Unwearied Mother, we rejoice to see you well,” said Jish. The Saint felt a pang of unhappiness; no lover had ever come to her, and at times the honorific seemed bitter mockery.

  “I am glad to see you safe,” she said. “You were away a long time. Where have you walked?”

  “We have been among your children who settled upriver, in the warm country,” said Jish. “They thrive, I am pleased to say, though they greatly desire to see you again.”

  “Perhaps I could visit them,” said the Saint, taking the tray with the pitcher and cups from Seni. The Saint poured water and offered it. “I’d like to see that country; I only passed through there once, as a baby, and I don’t remember it.”

  “It would delight your children inexpressibly to behold you once more,” said Shafwyr, holding up his cup and regarding it suspiciously. It was celadon, deep green glaze over white clay figured in a pattern of dragonflies. He drank from it and set it down. “Thank you.”

  For a while they spoke politely of the weather, and of the growth of the far settlements, and what new gardens had been planted there. She was aware they were waiting for an opening, however. When all the news seemed to have been told, she gave them one.

  “You are concerned about something,” she prompted. Jish and Vendyll set down their cups at once.

  “Mother, we are,” said Jish. “We have seen strange things as we traveled to you. Everywhere our people make gardens, which is fair and good, but they cut the soil with strange tools and raise more food than they can eat. We asked them, ‘For whom do you grow all this?’ And everywhere they smiled and said, ‘For the Children of the Sun!’ And then they would take out things to show us, made things, pots and pans of metal, cloth stained in bright colors and woven with gold. Their little ones played with strange, bright-painted toys. We saw this, and sorrowed.”

  “Why did you sorrow?” asked the Saint, though she could see the answer coming.

  “Because it seemed to us our people are in a second bondage,” said Vendyll. “Slaved to new strangers, and made to labor not with whips and overseers but with a vain love of painted things.”

  “And everywhere we asked whose doing this was, our people said, ‘Lendreth!’ “ said Jish, putting remarkable venom into the word. “And he was praised!”

  The Saint looked into her eyes, wondering at her anger, and saw there an old story. They had been lovers once, Jish and Lendreth, until he had decided that flesh was incompatible with holiness. The Saint leaned back, regretting that she had seen this.

  “He is praised, Sister, because he has done my will and rendered a service to my people,” she said. “Did you see anywhere my people lamenting these new things?”

  “No,” said Jish. Shafwyr and Vendyll had been shocked into silence.

  “They like the bright toys. They like having cooking pots of steel,” said the Saint. “They take up the spade and mattock because they wish to. They sell the Children of the Sun vegetables and also pearls. I see no harm in this. It’s certainly not slavery. You know that perfectly well, you who walked in the pits when the Beloved was with us and saw true misery.”

  “Then I suppose we have grown old and foolish,” said Jish tartly.

  “By no means; though you are nursing anger like coals in a pot, feeding it with these things as with tinder, and that’s foolish,” said the Saint, looking at Jish with a steady gaze. “The Riders are gone forever. Now my people are free to grow; growing things change. That is their nature. It is enough that they are at peace, and well, and happy.

  “The Children of the Sun, however, are ignorant and suffer greatly. If they go on as they have done, they will all die of war and famine and disease, and that would be a pity.”

  “They are not our concern,” said Shafwyr.

  “I have made them my concern,” said the Saint. “And they ought to be yours. What did the Beloved teach, about compassion for others?”

  “But—but—by others, he meant the others of our people,” said Vendyll.

  “No,” said the Saint. “He did not. And you know this.”

  They sat staring downward, unwilling now to meet her gaze. “He never ministered to the Riders,” muttered Jish.

  “They did not require his help. But he had compassion for them in the hour of their downfall,” said the Saint. “You know the truth about what happened that day.”

  Shafwyr and Vendyll shifted uncomfortably, but Jish looked up sidelong. “Indeed, young Mother, I remember,” she said. “It was Lendreth who struck the first blow and set the example for the Mowers. And are they also doing your will, strutting about with their new weapons? They go to the settlements and call on young boys to join them. They might be Cursed Gard, every one.”

  The Saint stared at Jish, until she was compelled to raise her eyes to avoid rudeness. The Saint saw there all that Jish had seen: that the Mowers had bought themselves swords of bright steel and gone about recruiting an army. The Saint saw too the spiteful glee with which Jish related this. The Saint’s heart sank.

  “Ah. I didn’t think you knew about that,” said Jish.

  “I didn’t. This is madness. Where are they?”

  The Saint went to the Mowers, at the camp they had made near the river, and was appalled to see how their numbers had grown. The older men who had worn chains in the wheat field were a minority now: most were boys, born in freedom, wearing all alike a green cloak, eager to find and defeat an enemy.

  She spoke plain words to them. The older men
threw themselves down and begged her pardon, unable to meet her gaze. She made them bring her the swords they had bought, one by one, and when they had finished, the piled blades rose as high as her waist. With white fire in her eyes, the Saint forbade them ever to handle edged weapons again.

  She had the swords wrapped up and brought away with her when she left that place. Two of the older men went with her, apologizing profusely. She was aware, however, that behind them the boys were already muttering among themselves and planning ways to disobey without disobedience; for hadn’t they learned to fight with quarterstaves and sling-stones and clubs?

  The Saint came back to her island weary, knowing that she could not stop what had been set in motion. That night she prayed to the Star.

  This was what you meant, that day in the wheat field. You saw this, didn’t you? I can’t stop it, and I don’t know where it will end, but it will end badly. Please, help me! Come back from the flood tide, come back and make them see reason. And if you can’t, then grant me greater strength than I have; for I will soon need it.

  She was writing a letter to the community by the river when Kdwyr came to her in haste. “Child, there are red men on the shore.”

  She rose to her feet, laying aside her brush. “Are they armed? Is one of the trevanion with them?”

  “I didn’t see any,” said Kdwyr, and by now the other disciples had come running to her, crying that the Children of the Sun had taken one of the boats and were rowing over. She calmed them. By the time the boat had come across, she was waiting at the landing, with the disciples gathered about her.

  Only two came in the boat, though perhaps a dozen more were on the shore, and they were busily setting up tents and unloading wheeled carts. They were armed, each man with a scabbard at his side, but none of them had drawn their blades.

  The two in the boat clambered out awkwardly and stood. One bore a chest in his arms, inlaid wood bound with silver; the other wore fine robes and a golden collar, and some badge of office on his chest. He looked up, smiling hopefully.