The Sable Moon

by Nancy Springer

  The old woman brought him a bowl of thick bean soup, setting it hastily before him and backing away as if wary of his reaction. But Trevyn was eager enough to eat it, and Dorcas watched him with less alarm; a hungry man was something she could deal with. Presently her husband, old Jare, came downstairs with a bundle of clothing, offering it to Trevyn as hesitantly as his wife had offered the soup. Trevyn took a tunic and tried to slip it over his head, but it was too small and threatened to tear. Smiling, he shook his head and handed it back. The old man retreated back up the stairs. His wife busied herself banging pots in the scullery. Suddenly, achingly, Trevyn felt the limitations of his muteness. These two would welcome no help from him for a while yet. He wandered to where a rude bench stood against the wall and draped himself over it, only for a moment, to rest.…

  Hours later, Trevyn awoke with a start to a gentle touch. Dark had fallen, and flickering oil lamps cast a dim light. Over him stood Emrist’s dark-haired sister, rendered mysterious by the night. “He wishes to speak with you,” she said, and Trevyn rose swiftly to follow her.

  Emrist sat propped up by pillows, with flasks and tumblers on the table near his bed. He looked much stronger, though pale. Trevyn knelt at his bedside, so that their eyes met.

  “I never expected to see you here,” Emrist said in tones low with wonder. “I thought perhaps you would bring me as far as the—barrier—and then drop me and bolt. If chance had favored, Maeve here might have found me. For that I would have owed you thanks enough. But this—it stuns me.”

  Trevyn gestured deprecation. Emrist regarded him long and thoughtfully.

  “Surely you have a name, but I do not know it,” he said. “I will call you Freca, if I may, for you are a brave youth.”

  Keen interest sprang up in Tervyn’s mind. It was an elwedeyn name—that is to say, in the Old Language. Even as he nodded his consent, Trevyn looked on Emrist with new eyes. Emrist returned his gaze, and puzzlement creased his brown.

  “I cannot believe you cannot speak!” he exclaimed. “There is song in your movements and epic in your glance. What are you, Brave One?” Trevyn stiffened in consternation; he had shown too much. But Emrist went on. “It does not matter, you know, that I have bought you. You are no slave. You are a free man. Fill your stomach with us as long as you will, or go where you will.” He turned to his sister. “Is it not so, Maeve?”

  “Even so,” she answered.

  Something let go inside Trevyn. Shackles he had not known were gripping his spirit melted away. He forgot his muteness, but his thankfulness was too great for words; this man had just healed the deepest hurt he had ever known. He seized Emrist’s hand and clung to it like a child, felt tears fall. He hid his face in the sheet. Frail fingers touched his hair.

  “Ay, they were foul enough to you,” Emrist said, and his voice held a sharp edge of wrath. “All because you would not hang your head and play the dog. But you stood like a caged eagle. You were free before I met you, Freca.”

  “He is spent, Em,” said Maeve in her cool woman’s voice, “and so are you. Let me show him to his room, and then I will come to fix you a draught.”

  Trevyn was more dazed than tired, but he followed her willingly. She led him to a room even barer than Emrist’s. Still, the bed beckoned with pillows and blankets. Trevyn settled himself swiftly and lay puzzling while his tears of relief dried on his face. What was he to do? He did not know where to go. Surely he had come to this place for some reason other than to leave.… There was something special about Emrist. Also, the man needed him; for some secret reason, he needed a mute slave. Well, he would have a mute servant, Trevyn decided, at least for a while. There was the price of his redemption to be considered—much gold from a man who was not rich. He would like to make it up to him somehow. For the time, Trevyn wanted nothing better than to serve this Emrist in whatever way he could.

  Chapter Three

  For the next several days Trevyn worked feverishly, heaving rocks out of the garden for old Jare, snaring rabbits and quail for Dorcas. After a few days, Maeve gave him a plain tunic of coarse cloth, and knee breeches, and crude sandals of leather and wood. Scarcely finery, but it made him feel the more indebted. Only at mid of day, when the sun beat down, would he cease from his voluntary labors to bathe in a dark, mirrorlike pool that lay in a hollow amidst the towering forest trees.

  By the time Emrist got up from his bed, a week after his injury, Trevyn had made his mark on the household. The cobwebs were gone from the rafters. Old Jare whistled tunelessly under his breath. Dorcas set more food on the table, and even the stoical Maeve moved about her tasks humming contentedly. Emrist was still weak; for a few days he came downstairs only to sit and watch. But on a rainy day, seeing Trevyn restlessly rubbing the grime from the small window panes, he spoke to him.

  “It seems you will stay with us yet a while, Freca.”

  Trevyn was almost startled into speech, but he merely shrugged his shoulders.

  “You are a very beaver for industry,” remarked Emrist. “It is not necessary, you know. We won’t turn you out.”

  Trevyn only grinned at him. Emrist sighed.

  “Well, since you have decided to be of use, come help me today. It’s time I was getting back to work.”

  With considerable curiosity as to what that work might be, Trevyn followed him up the stairs. They entered Emrist’s chamber, and Trevyn waited for him to go, perhaps, to the locked chest. But instead Emrist strode to a corner and wrestled a moment with a rough wooden plank of the wall. Reluctantly, a panel slid, and another narrow staircase was revealed.

  Eagerly, Trevyn followed his master up to the dusty garret. The place was close and windowless, though some light seeped in through the leaky wallboards. Emrist lit a pungent oil lamp that sent soot streaking toward the already blackened rafters. In its yellowish glow, Trevyn could see great numbers of parchments and leather-bound books ranked on splintery shelving. Fans of dried plants rustled overhead, and all kinds of formless rubble lay on the floor. Under the low peak of the roof stood a worktable cluttered with pots and urns and little jars, a brazier, and some metal caldrons. Trevyn recognized a scholarly disorder similar to Hal’s, but somehow warmer and more secret. Emrist poked at some of his earthenware jugs.

  “Potions for my interminable illnesses,” he grumbled, “old now, and weak. And dried-up paints and dyes, and spoiled perfumes, and messes I have forgotten the meaning of.” He rumaged through the containers, picking out a score or more and heaping them in Trevyn’s arms. “Take them out among the trees and let the rain have them. Wash the jars and bring them back. But do not put your fingers to your mouth, hah?”

  For many weeks thereafter Trevyn worked with Emrist in the cramped garret. Sometimes he ground minerals or dried plants in the mortar, taxing work that Emrist was glad to leave to him. Emrist was too easily tired to go roaming in the woods, so Trevyn would search out the plants he needed. Trevyn often wondered what to think of his master, who seemed to have knowledge of every kind of magical lore. Day after day the frail man compounded potions with long labor and greatest care. But no one came to buy his charms from him, not in this haunt, and Trevyn had found none of the strange trappings of sorcery among his things such as Hal had described from his days in Nemeton. No censers and ceremonial robes, no black-handled swords or talismans of bright metal. In fact, Trevyn doubted if high magic could be performed in the littered garret, which Emrist refused to let him clean. Spirits of ancient might would only come to surroundings suitable to their greatness.

  Still, Trevyn wondered. Sometimes the two of them made candles in many subtle colors, delicately-scented tapers molded from the rare and precious beeswax no ordinary person could afford. He found traces of chalk on the floor sometimes, in strange star and circle designs. And always on the worktable a kettle of salt stood—big, stone-white crystals. Salt could never be used in any evil spell and was essential to any good one.

  In time Trevyn became convinced that Emrist was not merely a dab
bler in hidden lore but a master working cautiously toward some definite goal. One day, when supper was late because of a balky kitchen fire, Trevyn observed Emrist surreptitiously prodding the sodden wood into flame with a mere flick of his fingertips. Another time, Trevyn awoke in the dark of night to see his master padding down the corridor with only his raised forefinger, glowing eerily, for a light. After that, seeming to intuit that Trevyn knew his secret, Emrist showed his power more openly. He would set a streamer of nonconsuming fire in midair to read by or send objects scooting across the garret into his servant’s startled hands. He could bring forth miniature whirlwinds out of stagnant air and showers of rain from clouds of arid smoke. He could make rocks split, make dirt heave and roil like bubbling broth. These were his simpler magics; to command any of them, he spoke no word, but only gestured with his graceful hands. Trevyn felt sure that Emrist was not practicing, that he did not need practice, such was the ease of his power. He had observed his master eyeing him in the light of strange, leaping flames, and he felt that Emrist must be testing his fortitude for the next step toward the hidden goal.

  Apparently, Emrist was satisfied. One day he began to summon the spirits of the elements, speaking to them in words of the Elder Tongue. Trevyn felt the ancient call and power of that language go through him like a tide of fire; all his heart must have leaped to his eyes. Emrist froze in midspell, staring at him. “Selte a ir,” he whispered, still in the same tongue. “Speak to me.”

  Trevyn only answered his stare. So long had he shackled his tongue, not speaking even to the little creatures of the forest, that his own will constrained him to silence like a brank. Even as his heart went out to Emrist, he felt that constraint stubbornly strain against the command his master had spoken. Command or plea? Hurt was in Emrist’s eyes.

  “Do you not yet trust me, Freca?”

  Brave one, he had named him. Trevyn felt himself plentifully brave to fight, to endure, to strive, but not to love. At that moment he would far sooner have faced the fiercest of warlocks than the gentle sorcerer before him. His cowardice bound him helpless, sickened him. He lowered his eyes and sank his head in his hands. Emrist’s face, had he seen, went bleak with disappointment and pity, but his voice was calm.

  “Ay, they served you ill enough,” he said softly, more to himself than to Trevyn. “No wonder you clench yourself against them still. Bide easy, Freca. Time will have the healing of you.”

  But time only locked Trevyn more into his muteness; time and Maeve, in a way. Emrist’s sister was a sturdy woman who moved impassively about the never-ending work of her household. Trevyn could not guess her age; her face was unlined, but hardened with years and toil and some quality he could not name. Her body was always hidden in folds of dark cloth, even in the heat. She spoke seldom. Trevyn paid her little mind after the first few days, and he never expected to see her naked in the light of a waxing moon.

  She came to him in his bedchamber, with her dark hair falling softly around her shoulders. Trevyn woke with a start and gaped, unable for a moment to think who she was. Moonlight and her nakedness had changed her; she was all sheen and surface, pearly and unfathomable, her breasts like argent globes, full and high. Her face was as blank as Gwern’s, her eyes pools of purple shadow. She sat on the bed by his side and wordlessly ran questing fingers along the smooth skin of his neck. He trembled under her touch, gulping and scarcely moving as she drew back the covers and fitted the alabaster curves of her hips onto his. Her body was thick and firm, supple from her labors. He sighed and shifted his hands to her breasts, letting her take him.

  In no way could Trevyn consider Maeve his conquest. She cradled his body as a harper cradles his harp, played upon him expertly, played against him with catlike warmth and grace, and both of them as mute as the watching moon. Later she left him with catlike indifference, drifting out without a backward glance. After she was gone, Trevyn’s thoughts turned unaccountably to Meg. What was she like under her baggy blouses and full peasant skirts? Fleetingly, he envisioned rosebuds and dew; he remembered the butterfly tremor of her lips when he had kissed her. Maeve’s lips had been as firm as her competent hands. Suddenly, Trevyn was fiercely glad that he would not or could not speak. He wanted never to whisper endearments to Emrist’s white-breasted sister.

  In the days that followed, Maeve moved about the house as serenely as ever, with no change in her manner or her sober face. Trevyn found it difficult to think of her as the same woman who came to him, palely shimmering, at night. She came for the seven nights of the swelling moon; Trevyn found himself longing for Meg whenever he embraced her. When the moon had reached the full, she left him to come no more. He did not expect her or seek her out in nights that followed. She had pleasured him to satiety. He wondered guiltily how much Emrist knew, for he had sometimes suspected that the sorcerer had uncommon means of knowledge, and he had constrained himself to keep even his thoughts buried deep. But Emrist showed no sign of knowledge or displeasure.

  The two of them still spent their days in the garret, invoking the disembodied essences of the elements. Trevyn practiced walking through their focus of being in the room. He found that the moistness of water did not wet him or blasts of air so much as ruffle his hair, just as he had long since learned that he would not be slain by the spirits of the dead. The invocation of fire pained him, terribly; he bore it, and found that his flesh did not shrivel. In a way, earth was more difficult to withstand. Dense, alien, crushing, an almost hostile presence choked him. Trevyn struggled for breath, but he felt Emrist’s eyes upon him even through his heavy covering of insubstantial soil, and shame stiffened his spine.

  After that day, Emrist sat for a week in the garret staring at nothing that Trevyn could see, waving him away when he came near. Trevyn was used to such trances. Hal had been accustomed to lose himself in visions of Elwestrand or the loveliness that had once been Isle. So Trevyn judged that Emrist was also refreshing himself in some such private retreat, gathering himself for the next drive at the hidden goal: He had seen how spell-saying sapped the magician’s small physical strength.

  In fact, Emrist was visiting a less pleasant place than he imagined. But Trevyn was glad enough to leave him alone, to escape the stifling garret and work in the outer air. It was the height of summer. Though cool breezes were still to be found beneath the trees, the sun beat down fiercely on the garden. Old Jare suffered from it and kept to the shade, but Trevyn gloried in the sunlight. He stripped to his loincloth as he carried water for the wilting squash and beans. His skin turned golden brown and shone with his sweat; his hair, long uncut, lay startlingly bright against his bronzed neck.

  Maeve stood at the upper windows sometimes and looked on. She did not stir when one day Emrist came up and stood beside her.

  “So you take your pleasure in watching these days,” he remarked placidly.

  “Ay,” Maeve replied. “It’s far enough away here that I cannot see the scars. They hurt me even to look at. Praise be, they didn’t show in the moonlight.”

  “Have you noticed the scars of his legs and shoulders?” Emrist asked. “Not the whip welts—”

  “I know the ones you mean. The vermin branded him also, it seems.”

  “Nay, it was not the slavers who did that. The whip stripes lie over the brands, and you know the odd, jagged shapes of them—do you think perhaps some animal attacked him and the wounds were seared for safety?”

  Maeve was not listening. “Yet he moves with grace and joy in spite of it all,” she murmured. As her eyes followed Trevyn, her brother was startled by the softness, almost the beauty, that transformed her time-tempered face to that of the girl he scarcely remembered. Emrist frowned in consternation.

  “Do not place your contentment too much on him, Maeve,” he admonished her softly. “Only the One knows what may happen in the next few days.”

  Her face hardened, and she turned from the window to face him. “I always knew that he came but to go,” she answered. “You are ready, then?” />
  “Ay, but I have decided I must do that alone. Freca would stand me in good stead; he is like a lion for bravery. But his soul has been bruised, and I think he is younger than he seems—” Emrist spoke with fumbling haste. “I will not risk scarring him anew.”

  “But, Em,” Maeve protested in exasperation, “have you forgotten why you bought him, a mute? To help you, no matter what the risk? The stakes are too high to think of one soul overmuch.”

  “Using him would make the stakes higher yet. Have you not sensed that he is of the old order? His eyes speak the Elder Tongue, though his mouth cannot. That is why I say he will be leaving us. He has some destiny to fulfill; I think he came here only to heal.”

  “Of course I know he is a special one,” Maeve flared. “More special than you imagine. But what of your own special destiny? You must not spend yourself without support. Let me stand by you.”

  “You know Wael scorns and hates womankind,” Emrist replied grimly. “Fear, perhaps, in scornful guise, for woman’s love is a strong magic.… But most likely he would not come before you. Or if he did, your presence would only add fuel to his fire.”

  “Ay, the more cursed he,” answered Maeve impatiently. “Well, then, send Freca on his way and get another mute! Only a few months will have been lost.”

  Emrist shook his head. “I must invoke Wael tonight.”

  “Why, in the name of the One?” She was ashen.

  “Because I have seen—they have found the brooch of the Islendais Prince.”

  That day, when Trevyn entered the garret, he found Emrist reading from a parchment dark with age. Trevyn made shift, as he had often done before, to glance at the title, and what he saw shook him like a blow. “On the Transferring of the Living Soul.” The crabbed old letters seemed to sear themselves on his eyes, for at their head leered the emblem of a leaping wolf.