Bayrd shrugged. “Yes. No. Or maybe. Hospodar Skarpeya could tell us better. But I for one wouldn’t discount the risk just because I don’t know the proper answer.”
“So and indeed. You will not be drawn on it?”
“No, Lord. Without more information, or more expert advice… No.”
“I had hoped you might reach that conclusion. Because I have been persuaded.”
Bayrd blinked apprehensively at the Overlord, wondering just what had slipped out without him noticing, but Albanak was not referring to any excessive knowledge of the Art Magic which he might have revealed. At least, Bayrd hoped not.
“Guelerd of Prytenon,” said the Overlord, choosing his words and phrases as carefully as Bayrd ar’Talvlyn had done, “has set aside whatever honour he may once have had, and even that hunger for glory which the younger among my kailinin can well understand. He fights by stealth; by murder and now by sorcery. Thus I am persuaded, and I am doubly persuaded, that despite the strictures of our own honour we must fight fire with fire, storm with storm – and sorcery with sorcery.”
“Albanak-arluth, what about the other clans?” said Gerin ar’Diskan. “What about their lords? Surely they have a say in this?”
“A say, yes. A veto, no. They have given me their oaths of allegiance, by faith and fealty freely given and received. So let them have their say tomorrow. I will have my say tonight. And it is this: if Lord Guelerd and his people have been using magic against us, and are now employing spells so powerful that they can kill on their side with the remaining force that somehow was not expended here, then we must meet them with magic. Match them with magic. Surpass them, as we do with skill at arms on the battlefield. Or we must be prepared to face the possibility of defeat. And I have not come so far to claim this land, and fought so long to hold it, only to be cast out of it by…by sorcery.”
Albanak dredged up a smile from somewhere, and to Bayrd’s mind dredged was right. It was a wide, humourless skinning of teeth that would have looked as much at home on a face ten days under water. “Or wizardry either, Bayrd-eir. If that’s what they’re using.”
“It could be both, Lord. Skarpeya told me that much. Lacking the Talent, a wizard cannot be a sorcerer; but a sorcerer can study the books and write the patterns on the ground and be a wizard as well.”
“All the more reason, then.”
“For Albans to study the Art Magic, Lord…?” For all the hope rising up inside him, Bayrd didn’t dare suggest the alternative: that a search be started for any who might have the Talent – and that once found, they be publicly assured that possession of the skill meant no loss of honour…
And neither did Albanak. “Light of Heaven, no!” he said, with a sour little laugh. “That would drag us down to Guelerd’s level, and I wouldn’t ask any decent person to demean themselves so much.”
When Bayrd glanced at him, there was sympathy in Marc ar’Dru’s eyes; but it did little to take away the sting of having been slapped across the face, even though he and Marc alone in all the hall knew that any blow had landed.
“These Pryteneks are a devious people,” Albanak went on as if the proposal had never been uttered. “We’ve all seen that. Betrayal and treachery are second nature. There is still enough Kalitzak gold left in the coffers to make a change of sides worthwhile, don’t you think?”
Clan-Lord Gerin grinned and nodded agreement. “Assuredly, Albanak-arluth. More than enough. Also an offer of honours, and protection of course. Or anonymity. That would probably come cheaper in the long run. After all, we’re talking about a sorcerer here, rather that a real person…”
“How will you find a – your sorcerer? My lord.” Bayrd remembered to put in the proper honorific only as an afterthought, because suddenly there was an ugly undertone to the way the high lords were speaking that had not been present before. As though they were no longer talking to him, but at him. It implied that after all he had said, they were finding it all too easy to include him as one who was somehow ‘not a real person’. There was a feeling about it as though he should be wearing a plague-sign, a badge to warn others off and keep them at a safe distance from his contagion. Bayrd hoped he might be wrong; but he could hear little enough to justify the hope.
“Find one?” Gerin glanced at him and looked him up and down in a way that Bayrd didn’t care for. “Look under a stone, perhaps!” The two lords chuckled, and were joined in their laughter by as many of the retainers in the hall who had heard or understood the joke.
Marc ar’Dru did not laugh.
“We have money and privileges to offer, Bayrd-eir,” said Overlord Albanak. “All we need is someone capable of making the offer to the right, er…person.”
“A volunteer. Someone to go beyond the fortress line, looking for a sorcerer who’s also willing to turn traitor. A dangerous task, Lord. And not especially honourable. I mean,” he was already hating himself for using their inflection on the word, “looking for a sorcerer…”
“Bayrd-eir, I think that you could go.”
Bayrd’s eyes snapped round to stare at Clan-Lord Gerin ar’Diskan so sharply that he was willing to believe they clicked in their sockets. He surely hadn’t heard that. Surely not. No. “My lord…?”
“You could go. You speak their clumsy form of Alban better than anyone else in hall – no, no false modesty. Don’t deny it, I’ve heard you. And as my Companion and Bannerman, nobody could accuse you of any lack of honour without accusing all of clan ar’Diskan – and offering disrespect to its lord, who chose you.”
Bayrd wondered how long this plan had been taking shape in the back of Gerin’s mind. Since his father Serej died? Since Bayrd’s first offer of insult to the old bastard, and thus an offer of disrespect to the whole clan? How long…?
Because otherwise he surely couldn’t mean it.
“A good choice,” said Albanak on perfect cue, and Bayrd tried to keep a spasm of loathing off his face. “An excellent choice. Set an honourable man to a dishonourable duty, and both earn merit. Besides which, what other kailin of all the clans and families and Houses knows so much about magic, or is so confident of his own good name that he would talk about it in public?”
And maybe he could mean it after all. Maybe both of them could mean everything they said, every compliment, every assurance, every trust they were placing in him for the successful completion of a difficult and hazardous duty. Which didn’t change the fact that he was just as likely to die hanging head-down in a tree with his guts reeled out of his belly and wrapped around the trunk, like that sentry from clan ar’Lerutz they found in the woods a month ago. It just meant that he was going to die honourably.
And that would make it hurt much less, he was sure…
7
Wanderer
Riding his mare Yarak and leading a pack-pony, Bayrd ar’Talvlyn rode out into the snow-shrouded darkness. He and the two horses were swaddled in furs and blankets, as much for camouflage as for warmth, and of the three, Yarak’s temper was the foulest by only a very short margin. He had already guessed that he might be required to leave the fortress that same night. After half a year in the clan-lord’s service, he had come to know that once Gerin ar’Diskan made up his mind, immediate action on that decision would be expected; no matter what it might be, and no matter how much disruption of routine – or other matters – might be involved in the execution of it.
Bayrd would have liked to make his own farewells to Mevn, but with Lord Gerin taking a personal interest in the speed of his departure, taking the time to do so was out of the question. And it would have taken time, he was sure of that. He made do with a second-hand goodbye sent through Marc ar’Dru, the verbal equivalent of a terse little note to Mevn rather than the long poem he would have preferred that they compose together. Had his best friend and his lover been other than brother and sister, he might have requested that the enforced dryness of his farewell be eased by a little enthusiasm in its delivery, but the very thought made him smile wryly. The only
enthusiasm he could expect there was Marc’s defence of his honour and reputation against whatever sarcastic accusations Mevn would level at his sneaking off into the night. Bayrd had listened with amusement to such arguments before, when neither of them thought he was able to overhear and the wit grew edged like knives – and he hoped he would live long enough to hear one again.
For all that it had interfered with his private life, there was a certain advantage about sneaking off by night; by dawn he would be well clear of what reports said was already being called ‘the invader’s country’, and thus be less obviously one of those invaders. No Alban had yet ventured more than ten miles inland. At least, he recalled without much relish, none that had come back. But then, they had been obviously intending to come back – a hunting party, a scouting party or whatever. He, however, was striking straight towards the province of Elthan to the northwest, the province whose lord was not so far an enemy, and he was heading out and away from Erdhaven just as fast as he was able.
Erdhaven… It was still only the place where the ships were burnt, and where despite the best efforts of time and tide, some blackened skeletons still remained visible between the tidelines. The place where that first rough fortification had been built, a child’s conceit of sand and pebbles that with the benefit of hindsight had been proof against little more than a few turns of the tide. They had named it. They had even, with a spectacular optimism that quite took the breath away, begun to build again, up beyond the line of dunes; and not this time in sand and wooden planks stripped from the ships. What wood they used now had become massive balks of timber, whole trees lopped and trimmed and squared, and the sand and pebbles had become roughly-squared stone blocks. If the inland fortress-line protecting the beach could be built in stone, then so could the dwellings which now lined that beach. It was the first town in the new land of Alba, and the first port.
That great sweep of bay, guarded by headlands at either end of its four-mile curve, made an excellent natural harbour. It had been proven time and again by the ships of the Undeclared, still anchored there and still safe despite the autumn storms. There was already a growing admiration for their stubbornness, and their very name had in the past few months come to be spoken more as a title of honour than as the barely veiled insult it had been in the beginning. Port facilities had become a matter for immediate attention. Not to entice the Undeclared inland, of course; and if it was, neither side would be the first to admit it. If gales and blizzards hadn’t done so, then certainly soft words and wooden docks would have no better chance.
There was no blizzard blowing when Bayrd left Hold ar’Diskan, even though the snow was still falling from the featureless overcast of the night sky. But the blizzard began shortly afterwards: just as soon, in fact, as he was far enough away from the gaze of eyes that might not approve of what he had done. Sitting in the middle of it in the middle of the night, sitting literally at – and as – its focus, Bayrd could not see or even say the storm’s extent. But it was enough to fill in the tracks he and Yarak left behind, and mask his passage from eyes even more unfriendly than those of his own people. That was more than enough.
The wind shrieked and wailed and howled like a pack of wolves as it slashed past him, driving any Prytenek scouts – or indeed, thought Bayrd ruefully as the more energetic gusts pierced through even the heavy furs he wore, any self-respecting pack of wolves – under cover, managing to send ice-spicules and flakes of snow at one and the same time against his cloaked back and full into his scarf-muffled face, so that he was forced to squint his eyes almost shut. As if it wasn’t difficult enough to see at night…
Such conditions for travel were not the most comfortable Bayrd had ever experienced, but they were certainly more comfortable than the alternative, which could end with not just ice in the back but an arrow. Even so, there might be such a thing as performing a storm-summoning too well. Or not; there was always the thought of that arrow out of the stillness to make him glad such stillness was in short supply.
For all that his position and rank left him very much at Gerin’s beck and call, the rights to privacy available to a clan-lord’s Companion and Bannerman was greater and more impenetrable than anything a mere kailin could hope to command. Bayrd had put his new-found seclusion to good use, practicing his new-found skill at sorcery alone, without tuition or guidance. He learned that it was not necessary to feel anger, or fear, or pain, or any other of the intense emotions that had triggered it in the past, in order for the focused passions to take shape within him. After that breakthrough he had progressed rapidly – if somewhat destructively. Needing to tidy up the aftermath of failed or over-effective experiments was another reason he was grateful for his various privileges.
As a self-taught sorcerer his knowledge and abilities were shockingly spotty, and there were many, many things he did not know how to do; but making a change in the weather was surprisingly simple if the ingredients were already to hand. This personal blizzard, for one: the snow was already sifting down, spun into coils and fine, twisted skeins by a light breeze filtering through the trees. It had taken only a little exertion and the forming of the proper structures in his mind, circular to linear, gentle to vigorous, to change that whirling breeze into one which blew in an unwavering straight line. After that, like a round stone rolled downhill, the weather did the rest.
Granted, sometimes the effects were localized – very localized indeed, sometimes no more than an arm’s length away – but they were effective. He had completely stopped rain from falling on his head once; however, since it had continued to fall on his shoulders, he didn’t consider that charm much of a success. A few moments of thought and a different slant on the problem had given him a better answer: the rain fell as before, but each drop split and split again until when they reached him they were little more than a fine mist that felt cool on his skin, silvered his garments, but barely made him wet at all. Since he wasn’t trying to alter how much snow was falling, but simply the manner in which it fell, the little snowstorm was much easier.
Or rather, too easy. Within an hour of his interference the wind of the world had risen, the snowfall had doubled, and Bayrd’s private blizzard had become the real thing. After two failed attempts to change it had left him with a splitting headache, he hunched down in his saddle and swore venomously. This storm had gone far beyond his small ability to stop, control – or do anything much, except endure…
* * * *
After what had to be ninety miserable miles, Bayrd felt sure he was no longer at risk – at least, no longer at risk from Lord Gelert’s men. The bitter weather was another matter entirely. Riding from dawn till dusk, in good conditions and with adequate changes of mount, he would have taken no more than two long days over the journey. But covering the same distance with only one horse had taken him four days, or maybe five; he had a nasty suspicion that he had lost count somewhere along the way once the blizzard closed in around him. Even that distance was no more than a guess formed in his half-frozen brain; but there had been enough breaks in the clouds before they shut off the sky again like great iron-grey doors to let him feel certain enough he was still moving north by west. Or rather, that Yarak and the tough little pack-pony were still moving northwest. He just happened to be along for the ride, and with each passing hour, Bayrd would have far rather been anywhere else at all.
As abruptly as they had begun, the wind and the snow died away. There were a few sporadic flurries, and after that, utter peace. He had an hour, or a little less, in which to appreciate the stark beauty of the long-shadowed white landscape under the empty blue sky and its small, pale sun – and then the cold came down like a hammer. Bayrd ar’Talvlyn had thought he might have been glued to the saddle by a glaze of ice while the wind was blowing and the snow was lashing at his face, but it was nothing to the grinding chill that settled over the world now. He snarled an oath that came past the wrapping of his scarf in a smoky cloud of exhaled breath, for he was all too familiar with this sudden
drop in temperature. He had felt it before, on a pointless winter campaign for Daykin of Kalitz that had won nobody any honour – even though it lost several of his Hundred their fingers and toes.
Damn Gelert. Damn the Pryteneks. Damn every sorcerer in this damned country. If they came out right now from wherever they were hiding and formed a line dressed by the left for his inspection, he would have ignored them. There was a more important concern requiring his attention than even the most honourable mission for his lord. If he didn’t build some sort of shelter right now for himself and the horses, they would all freeze by sundown, and the mission could go hang.
Bayrd swung down from the saddle and stood for a few seconds to let the cramps work their way somewhat out of his muscles, his hand poised to fend off Yarak’s inevitable tooth-snapping demonstration of her displeasure. Nothing happened; neither she nor the pack-pony attempted to bite, or even kick. Bayrd frowned, because when even the wicked-minded little Ferhana mare was too weary to be irritable, matters were serious indeed.
The shelter, when he finished it, had not so much been built as dug. Though the wind had scoured most of the open spaces so that only a foot or so of snow lay there, it took Bayrd only a few minutes to find where deeper drifts had built up, between the trees whose undergrowth and roots had served to catch the snow and hold it. There was a shovel among the bits and pieces of gear in the pony’s pack, a necessary piece of equipment for various tactical as well as hygienic reasons, and with it gripped in both his gauntleted hands, Bayrd went boring into the largest snowbank like a hot coal.
There was no point in trying sorcery on it. For one thing, he didn’t know what to do, and anyway, simply creating a hole in the drift without packing its walls tight would have caused the whole thing to collapse, and so defeat his entire purpose of making some sort of enclosed shelter. The second reason was more personal. He had no wish to kill himself.
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