by David Keck
Durand had the key. He knew the source of Radomor's fury. He knew that he had played jailer to mother and child. He knew it all. If he meant to call himself a man, he could not stand mute.
"My mind's turning round and round it," Lamoric said. "And now we are here," he finished, looking into the trees. Finally, Durand could keep silent no more. "Look to her husband." But the voice was not his.
In an instant, Lamoric's men were in motion: blades and shields and swiveling helms.
A stranger stood in the track: one of the Fetch Hollow men, or one like them. Tall and lean and lethal behind a haunted stare. Cool brass scales glinted under his cloak.
Coensar landed with Keening at the man's throat, and the old sword moaned.
"Always the same," murmured the man. He showed no sign of having noticed the sobbing blade at his gullet. Like a sleepwalker, he looked through them.
"Let him stand, Coen," Lamoric breathed.
Coensar did as he was asked, but kept Keening's point at the man's throat as he gave ground.
"Who are you?" asked Lamoric.
The stranger paused. His eyes narrowed.
'There have been many like you. A great many," he announced.
"What business have you telling me about my sister?" "Always the way." It was as though he was not talking to them. "You go to the tournament," the stranger added. "I don't know what—"
Coensar raised his hand. "You aren't speaking of High Ashes, are you?"
"The tournament," the warrior corrected.
Coensar snapped the flat of his hand into the stranger's sternum, but the man seemed more bewildered than injured. He had broad shoulders.
"What tournament?" Coensar said.
"The Bower. The tournament on the Glass."
Now it was Sir Agryn's turn to interrupt. "Ask again who he is."
"What of it man?" said Lamoric. "Who are you? My captain'll kill you where you stand if you don't answer."
Now the stranger seemed to notice the edge still flickering at his throat "I am called Saewin. I search." He blinked, giving his head a half-shake. "You go to the tournament?"
Incredulous, Lamoric turned to his captain. "What of this tournament? This Bower?"
"I have seen it Lordship," said Coensar. "Once. Every seven winters, since the High Kingdom. There's a tournament in Hesperand."
"But... but we have no time. We must reach High Ashes." His horse seemed to pick up its master's mood, nodding anxiously.
"We may still try," said Coensar.
The man called Saewin was nodding. Then, as fluid as a fish, he stepped from Coensar's sword to the shoulder of the hill. His hand darted deep, and he pulled from the earth the weapons of a fighting man from another age. First, a long and straight-bladed sword flashed into the twilight. Durand judged that there was hardly another like it left under the vault of Heaven. Next came an oval shield and a helm, gilded like a reliquary. The last, though, was the strangest of all. Deep in the ground, the warrior caught hold of something, then pulled, drawing out a long shaft of some dark wood. Hand over hand the weapon came, until a blade popped like a fish from the depths. It was a lance or long spear. As the stranger switched the blade high over his shoulder, a weird rain spattered over the men. A drop landed on Durand's cheek.
Guthred's eyes locked on Durand's face. Durand reached up, and found that his fingers came away red. The old blade was bleeding. Dark tears sweated from the edges to curl down its blood-dark shaft.
Saewin stood then, a mad warrior from a thousand winters past, looking for all the world like he meant to join them.
"You're mad," Lamoric said.
Berchard spoke out. "Lordship, think carefully about what you do."
"You'd have me bring this madman with us?"
"I just say think on it. This is no ordinary place. Turning aside strangers. Nothing good comes of that."
Agryn knuckled the skin under his nose. "There is something about that name 'Saewin.'"
"Fair enough then," said Lamoric. "I won't turn a stranger away in this place, but neither will we slow our march for him." He turned to the man. "Keep up, Saewin of the forest, and you may travel a while with us."
Saewin nodded slow under his antique helm, looking for all the world like some brass creature of the sky.
THEY HAD COVERED another league when Durand spotted a glint among the trees. "What was that?" Heads swiveled his way.
Knights from ahead and shield-bearers behind all watched as he pointed. "There." A shape moved beyond the trees.
Something clattered—Saewin had dropped his war-gear in a heap and now scrambled up an old beech, hands and feet finding holds more easily than Durand could find rungs on a ladder. Five fathoms high, the warrior looked out like a sailor.
"Armed men," Saewin breathed. Everyone heard.
Berchard's face twisted. "Armed men? What's he on about?"
"Quiet," said Coensar. "Everyone. Your shields and your swords."
Durand hooked his scarred shield from his packs, and turned back to find that he had a long clear glimpse of the other party: Soldiers and horses had halted in a clearing only a hundred paces from where he sat. Every horseman wore a coat of mail. Just then, Durand's borrowed horse shifted, and, with that tiny motion, the trees eclipsed the other company. He tried for another glimpse, but no matter how he moved, he could not find the chance window that had let him see. "They're gone," he said.
Coensar nodded sharply. "Quietly now, gentlemen. And eyes open. I won't send outriders in this mad place, so each man must be his own lookout."
Saewin dropped the five fathoms from the branches, and plucked his gear from the track.
As THEY LOST the light, they saw more and more of the wandering strangers.
For leagues, the trail sank, and, in the earthen walls rising around them, muscular tangles of beech roots became the ribs of small caverns. Durand found himself imagining the wink of buried hoards in the hollows. High above, the elephantine trees knotted like a sanctuary aisle.
A voice from the back of the ranks called out, "Now I see them." The men winced. Troops had been sighted in all directions. Now, Coensar did not even bother to call a halt. It seemed that the forest was crowded.
Durand worked his shoulders, his hands lumbered with sword and shield. A louse took its long chance to prickle the back of his neck.
Just as he let the straps go to have a scratch, the bushes exploded. A mounted rider plunged into the track. Sunset flamed in the knight's face and the yard of steel in his fist. Durand uncoiled, catching at his own sword and shield, sure he was too slow.
Though he was so close that Durand could see the stubble on his jaws and the blaze where the wind had burned his cheekbones, no blow fell.
The knight simply stared down the track, seeing nothing. His head turned once more, and then he urged his horse up the bank.
This time the column had stopped, and the eyes of every man were wide and fixed on Durand; some men were lowering the sign of the Eye.
"You."
Saewin stared up at him, the bleeding spear in his fist. The man's head tilted, causing the shadows that brimmed in his eyes to turn.
'I'm the one."
The rest of the company were nudging their horses into motion. Durand tapped his mount's flanks, but the stranger kept pace.
"Me. Though the search has been long, we are very near now," said Saewin.
Even as the madman spoke, Durand was conscious of Guthred watching him.
"I don't know what you want, friend," Durand said, "but, whatever it is, you can have it."
"My Lady awaits me." There was something about his hands: blood oozing up between knuckles locked on the old spear. "Me."
Berchard jounced in between them. "Here," he said. "Leave the boy alone. Whatever old snare you're worrying at, he's nothing to do with it."
Durand heard a new sound: running water. Somewhere ahead, a good-sized stream rolled through the leaves. It would have to be nearby and quick for him to hear it ove
r the din of hooves and harness. Berchard was nodding.
"What is it? Why do you look?" Saewin demanded. "What do you hear?"
Durand had no time to answer. The stranger's head whipped round. "What do you hear!"
The men of Lamoric's company hesitated, catching the stranger's rising frenzy.
"Ride on," Coensar ordered.
"What is it?" Saewin had turned from Durand, appealing to anyone. Durand spurred his horse. The company rode at a ragged canter now.
"Hells," snarled Guthred. "Get to the river. The river or we're all done for!"
Berchard called to Durand: "Ride, boy. Ride!"
"Stop!" Saewin shrieked. They were leaving him behind. "Not like this. Not again!"
Durand had a glimpse of the arcane warrior springing up on a great stone behind them, the veins and sinews of his body standing stark below a face that seemed nothing but rolling eyes. Creation fell into darkness. The trees roared their horror.
The men sawed their reins like plowboys. A wind snapped around the galloping company, snatching at cloaks and sucking at the breath in Durand's mouth. He was standing in his stirrups, and his horse was flying. Behind them, Saewin lunged, hurling himself around trees and shaking the earth. Great husks of bark came free in his hands.
The forest was unraveling before them. Beyond the shoulders of the men ahead, Durand saw a narrow span. A bridge like something carved by a bowyer swung from the gloom. There was light beyond: green banks and shining leaves. The hot blast of Saewin's raging burned on Durand's neck.
They rode out. Saewin screamed, and they hit the deck of the span, vaulting in an instant onto the high arch.
Durand shot a glance back. The ancient warrior twisted, launching the long and bloody lance from his fist. Between eye-blinks it flew; the blade was a glint set to splay his collarbones like a great carver's fork.
But it never landed.
The weapon hung in the empty air where the bridge arched highest Durand's borrowed horse had taken one step farther than Saewin could reach. The air hissing through Durand's teeth was warm and full of cool summer. Beyond the bridge, Saewin was gone, and the standing blade of the spear was faint as a stroke painted on glass.
12
The Lady’s Bower
In this new Creation, the company creaked on the high, timber span. Every one of them looked as wild as any roadside madman. Finally, Coensar spoke into the stillness, "This river. They call it 'Glass.' We are riding to this tournament of Saewin's. It draws us on."
Far below, the -river rumbled, bounding between mossy walls, its flood as clear and green as a knot of crystal. The air above was cold. At a glance, Durand imagined falling into the gelid flow, tumbling leagues through the forests of northern
Errest, past Tem Gyre and into the misty Winter Sea—a place he had never seen. It could easily have happened. Saewin could have thrown his lance one frantic heartbeat sooner.
'There's no going back with this madness in the woods," Lamoric said. "The whole duchy seems a funnel to this place."
Uneasy men nodded and spurred their horses forward.
On this new side of the Glass, another aisle of great beeches led on, and they pushed on. The nave of trees opened wide to reveal what might have been the chalk-gleaming crown of some giant from Creation's Age of Powers.
"Just as it was," Coensar breathed. "Bower Mead."
"God," Durand whispered.
The crown was, in fact, a shell keep of flawless white limestone where the gray pillars of the forest gave way to a glade. Walls rambled over the grass enclosing an area as large as the duke's castle at Acconel. Hard men craned their necks like wondering peasant boys.
"We should try to slip past," said Lamoric, but even he was fascinated. They rode into the shadow of the keep, every eye on its walls as though fiends might leap from the windows. Sheep grazed here and there, but there were hardly fields to feed the castle's people, if any people there were. Soon, though, he had his explanation. Beyond the shoulder of the castle, a slope fell away toward the setting Eye of Heaven. In the red blaze, he made out fields and distant cottages. Plow teams toiled, the moan of the oxen carrying from the valley with the dull reports of mattocks, as men and women swung hammers against the chill earth.
"What is this?" said Sir Agryn.
"Getting set to plant?" Lamoric offered.
"Aye," answered Coensar. "It is just as it was. They sow the winter wheat tomorrow."
"What?" said Lamoric. "Always? What if it's a cold year? Surely they don't hold off?"
Sir Agryn was shaking his head. "It's an older power than seasons, I think, Lordship." His long fingers spread into the fist and fingers sign of the Eye.
"Marvelous," said Lamoric.
"I cannot be more precise, Lordship," Agryn said. 'The story is dark to us, though this Bower Mead may answer before long."
At these words, the gatehouse came into view.
A glance that Durand couldn't read passed between Coensar and old Guthred.
"We should leave it be," said Lamoric. None of them made a move to depart.
"Durand," said Guthred. "See if you can find a porter. Maybe there's a porter's lodge in the gatehouse. Tell your friends we've come."
"I will see who I can find," Durand answered.
With the eyes of half the company on him, Durand swung down from his mount. There was a big barrel vault, its blue shadow cut from the white wall, almost a tunnel to the doors inside.
Durand stepped under the arch. Sunlight probed murder I holes and arrow loops.
"Hello?" he said. His voice rolled around the masonry.
No one answered.
"My captain, Sir Coensar, is at the gates. Is there anyone—"
Something hissed—a foot on bare stone—near and far, in front and behind. As Durand twisted, he caught sight of Guthred and Lamoric and the others all watching him twitch. He took a firm step into the tunnel and out of view.
The shafts of light slid over him. Now he was alone with whatever had hissed beyond those arrow loops. He turned and quickly spotted one loop in the western wall that stood dark where the others shone. He looked away.
"I can't believe these gates would be unguarded," he muttered, allowing an idle step to carry him back toward the loop. "The castle's in good repair...." A second step. "Peasants in the fields."
Another step brought him within a yard of the stoppered loop. He stabbed his hand deep, locking his fingers in something tangled and fibrous. He pulled. A brow and cheekbone flashed against narrow gap. A great nacreous eye blinked against the stone, its owner hissing like frying adders. Durand had pulled his fish out by its beard.
Durand leaned close to the pearly eye.
"Come on, friend," he said. "My captain and his men are waiting outside."
But the eye only blinked, and Durand had no choice but to twist another racket from the adders.
He let his victim free. "Open the gate and announce Sir Coensar."
The pale eye remained at the arrow loop a moment longer, then there was an explosion of hisses and slithers, and Durand was alone.
For several heartbeats, he stood in the gloom with his jaw open, wondering how he would explain himself, but then the doors creaked open. A bent, ragged man stood against a slash of bright lawn. Above a beard like a winter-killed sheep, his pearly eyes were wide and fixed on Durand.
"Lordship," the strange man said.
"I'm only announcing Sir Coensar," Durand explained. "If you'd tell your master he's here?"
The stranger's mouth twisted wryly. "Yes, Lordship. Well. Yes and no." With that, he turned and trotted away.
The man was gone, and the doors hung open. Durand took his chance to tell the others that they were free to enter.
INSIDE, THE COURTYARD was wide and green. As Durand followed his masters inside, he peered at the perfection of crisp masonry and green lawn. In the slanted light, he picked out the silhouettes of eerie guardsmen, statue-still up in the parapets. If the men of this place wer
e anything like old Saewin, he was lucky he let the gatekeeper loose.
Filing in and finding themselves alone, Lamoric's travel-stained company spread in a ragged line. Berchard gave Durand a questioning look, but Durand could only shake his head.
"Well, now I suppose we'll meet the master of this place," Lamoric said, making as though Otherworld castles were nothing new to him. The rest of retinue curled their fingers round the hilts of their weapons. Durand scanned the walls, searching the shadow of each arrow loop.
Abruptly, there was a clatter. For an instant, Durand thought of crossbows, but, instead of feathered bolts flying, a pair of tall gray doors swung wide across the yard.
The party stared.
There was nothing but gloom between the doors.
"It's going to be one of that Saewin's kin, ain't it?" Berchard muttered.
Something moved in the doorway. A shiver of tension passed over the ranks, then there was a flash of yellow.
"What in every Hell?" said Berchard.
A double file of young women walked into the courtyard, each wearing a fortune in good silk. They stopped in two facing lines, and, though they stood silent, every one had the ducked-chin look of a naughty child. They wore their hair uncovered, letting plaits and tresses shine in shades of copper, gold, and raven's wing. For a long moment, none of Lamoric's men moved. Durand found that a pair of these maidens seemed to be looking at him, up and down, and doing a bad job concealing their amusement. Durand thought of his matted hair and his hard-worn surcoat—green gone the gray of peas-pottage. Beside him, Berchard slapped dust from his robe.
With heroic composure, Lamoric stepped forward. "Um," he said. "Good day to you, fair ones." No one else could have done so well. "I am Sir Lamoric, the leader of this company, second son of Abravanal, Duke of Gireth."
There was a lot of smiling and no answer.
Lamoric returned their smiles, baffled. After facing a few moments of their silence, he seemed compelled to press on. "I apologize for our intrusion. We travel to a tournament in Mornaway." No one said a word. "I have spent the season fighting as a black knight in the lists—the Red Knight, you understand—planning to—"
