The Wind-Witch

by Susan Dexter

  Robart retained his hold on her, though Druyan couldn’t fathom why she might require the supporting grip, unless he intended to prevent her escaping at such an unseemly hour. Robart was right, come to that—she was too used to being her own mistress to remember that she was among folk apt to judge her actions by their own notions of propriety. To ride out of Keverne alone, at night, was unthinkable. Even an escape at dawn might not be permitted.

  The captains led her across one court, then two others, finally up an outside stair to the second story of a slateroofed building snugged against what—by the sound of the sea faintly carried through it—must have been one of Keverne’s outer walls. The door was unbarred, and opened at Robart’s touch.

  There were a dozen men, all blue-clad, within the chamber. The scattered remains of a meal covered a long trestle across the far end. “I’ll fetch us food,” Yvain said, while Robart guided Druyan to a chair close by the warm hearth.

  “My sister, the Lady Druyan of Splaine Garth,” he announced to the company, lest any form a false impression and taint her reputation with it.

  One or two of the men nodded pleasantly in her direction. Druyan returned the greetings with what she hoped was a gracious smile, feeling out of place and awkward. Yvain returned with a platter of meat pies in one long-fingered hand, three mugs of cider juggled somehow in the other.

  “We don’t keep quite the same state Brioc does,” Robart said ruefully, looking at Yvain’s meager burden. “Especially once we’re down to scraps. I could send for more—”

  “Rather plain food and plain talk here than marchpane swans and folly at the duke’s board,” Druyan declared, and took a sip of her cider. She had not eaten all that day and was famished, but she thought despite all that she would have choked, been unable to swallow a single bite of the daintiest fare at her uncle’s table. She saw his face in her mind’s eye, as he prattled happily of warships being Esdragon’s salvation, and her outrage almost brought the cider up again.

  “What did you and our uncle talk about?” Robart asked softly.

  Druyan told him—exactly as she had the duke—about the attacks on Splaine Garth, the other raids she had learned and warned of. “The army’s never in time to be any use before it even hears of trouble, the raid’s over, the ships are back at sea looking for another town or farm to rob. But a mounted force could be where it needed to be more easily. He has the horses—”

  “Not for long,” Yvain intetjected bitterly. “Brioc’s making ready to sell all but the breeding stock, to raise money.

  “Money for ships?” Druyan asked, not really a question.

  Yvain nodded elegantly. “I see our liege lord has mentioned his passion to you. ‘Ships will save us—’ ” he quoted, in a wicked approximation of Brioc’s habitual tone.

  “They might,” Robart answered reluctantly, as if he wanted to be fair about it.

  “They never will.” Yvain waved his mug disparagingly. “You know what Meegran suggested?”

  Robart made a face. “I hadn’t heard. What’s Councillor Meegran’s latest wise scheme?”

  Yvain’s face and voice were devoid of expression. “Hire one of the raider captains and his companions as mercenaries, to defend our coasts while Dimas puts a fleet together,” he deadpanned.

  Druyan choked on a mouthful of pie.

  “Exactly my opinion,” Yvain said, patting her delicately on the back. Robart scowled at him. “Well, Chief-captain, do you suppose it’s good policy to set the wolf to guard the sheepfold?”

  “You are joking about this, Yvain?” Robart offered Druyan his own cider, to wash the offending bit of pie away.

  “I assure you, Robart, I am not. ’Twas seriously proposed and considered.”

  “Brioc’s our duke,” Robart’s face went sunfall red.

  “He’s wrong,” Druyan said, shocking even herself, putting it so bluntly. “A—anyone can be wrong,” she faltered on, wondering if she could back down, if she should try to qualify what she’d blurted out.

  Another Rider crossed the room to join them, making a little bow to Druyan as he arrived. “Well met, Lady, once more. I don’t know that we had one another’s names.” He pulled up a chair. “I’m Kernan. We met at Falkerry. I did pass on your request about sending soldiers, but ’twas not acted upon.” His expression said he was rather used to that outcome.

  “What were you doing, at FaIkerry?” Robart asked, looking sharply at Druyan.

  “I just told you—carrying warnings—”

  “She was at Falkerry,” Kernan agreed. “Told them about the ships upcoast, and the alarm was raised in time to save the city. There was fighting, but they were ready, and prevailed.”

  “She was at Teilo, also,” said another grim-faced Rider, entering into the loose circle before the fire. “Though not quite in such good time. And she knew about Porlark. Your pardon, Lady, I know you said you only heard about that, but there is no way you could have known about it so soon, if that was true. You warned them, as well, I think.”

  “So that’s how they knew to hoist the chain!” Yvain exclaimed delightedly. “I wondered at that—they mostly use that marvel to keep captains in, who’d otherwise skip out on port fees.” Two or three other men drifted closer, into easy earshot. Another joined them openly, deeming the talk no longer private.

  “How did you know where they’d strike, Lady?” the grave man asked. Druyan’s skin prickled—she did not think she dared give him the truth.

  “Never mind that,” Robart cut in. “How could you possibly get all the way from Splaine Garth to Falkerry? Where did you see the ships?”

  Druyan mock-frowned at him, lifting one corner of her mouth. “All these years, and still you won’t believe me about Valadan!”

  “Valadan!” The name ran around the room like a trail of fire across the night sky. It was repeated with familiarity, with nostalgia, sometimes with wonder.

  “It’s just a black horse she’s named that,” Robart insisted into the hubbub.

  “Of course,” Druyan agreed sweetly. “And never mind how I got to Falkeny in one night.”

  “I don’t much care what she was riding,” Kernan said, refusing to be distracted, “She was there, in time, with a true warning. That’s what interests me.”

  Druyan felt as if she’d been trapped against the wall. If she confessed to them about Kellis and his talents, she might be putting his life at risk—but if she did not, she would lose their confidence, which was now her sole means of spreading the warnings Kellis gave her. These horsemen would never believe she rode widely enough—even upon mage-created Valadan—to see every shipload of raiders approaching. Chance could not account for her knowledge, she would never dupe them that way. They might not even accept the truth. . .

  “When my farm was raided, we took prisoners,” she said, the inevitable choice abruptly made. She looked from one face to another, trying not to let Robart’s eye catch hers. “One of those was wounded, left behind when the others escaped. We needed harvest hands, the duke had all Splaine Garth’s men—still has them, come to that! Kellis agreed to work, to pay for his release.”

  “What does Travic think he’s doing?” her brother asked, outraged.

  Druyan refused to be lured off onto a tangent and ignored Robart. “Kellis turned out not to be one of the raiders’ own folk—the Eral took his people’s land, overran it years ago. He told me what he’d learned about them, where they come from, and why—”

  “We all know why!” a tall Rider blurred. “They’re thieves and murderers. I saw Teilo—”

  “The Eral despise weakness,” Druyan reported seriously. “What they want, they take. If they can beat us, push us aside, they will. If they can’t, if we stand up to them, they’ll learn to respect us. Then the raiders among them will look elsewhere for their plunder, and the traders will come in their place, with goods to sell.”

  “They won’t respect us very much if we pay a few of them to keep the rest away,” Yvain observed cheerfull
y.

  “None of this explains how you knew where they’d be,” Robart persisted, hammering away at her like a raiding ship. “Little bands, striking each at their captain’s whim—how did you know where and when?”

  Druyan swallowed hard. “Kellis saw it. He . . . has a gift of prophecy. He looks into water and sees what’s to come.” No sense telling them the rest of it—that yesterday and tomorrow were indistinguishable.

  “You said they beat his people. And he got himself captured, didn’t he? He can’t be very handy at foreseeing.” It was as if what she sought to hide was written across her face, Druyan thought. And Robart’s objections seemed so logical.

  “His people couldn’t fight iron weapons,” she said, tighting back. “Even we say iron poisons magic—for his folk it was worse than that. Iron poisons them.” She shuddered, thinking of Kellis’ hands after the barley harvest, what he had suffered trying to hide that flaw from his captors, his presumed enemies. “They dare not touch iron, much less stand against it in battle. And they don’t farm, not to any extent. Most of them follow herds of cattle and migrate with the seasons. You can’t defend grassland the way you do a coast, a town.”

  “We’re not doing much of a job of defending a coast either,” Yvain observed. He wasn’t smiling.

  “We’ve been dismissing the raids as an unpleasant fact of life, like winter storms,” Druyan insisted. “A nuisance, but with an end coming. We can’t do that. They’ll only get worse.”

  “Particularly if our duke begins inviting some of the villains for extended visits,” Yvain said under his breath.

  “From what Kellis has told me, they’ll test us till we make them stop. The Eral rob any folk they can—but if we fight them, stand them off, they’ll turn to trading instead. They’ll do whatever brings in the profit. Whatever we make them do.”

  “You trust this man?” Robart asked incredulously. “He was one of them, Druyan!”

  “He was with them,” she corrected, not waiting to let him accuse her of splitting hairs. “Using an Eral ship to carry him over the sea, away from a place where he couldn’t live any longer. I believe him about that. As for trusting him—Kellis has never betrayed me, and his prophecies have always been true.”

  “So far.” Robart’s hands were white-knuckled fists.

  “So far’s as far as we’ve gone,” Druyan said stubbornly. “Ask at Falkerry. And Porlark.”

  “You let him send you riding into the middle of a raid?” Robart slammed his right hand, palm flat, onto the tabletop. The sound was as loud as a shod horse kicking his stall. “It’s a wonder you didn’t get yourself killed!”

  “What choice, except to let other people die?” Druyan cried. She wanted to protest, to say how careful she’d been—all the while outraged to be censured so roundly for simple good deeds.

  “She needn’t risk that again,” Yvain interjected smoothly. “If we do it in her place.”

  “We?” Brows shot up, on every face. A few pulled back down into frowns. Other mouths smiled. The cider was making Druyan’s head buzz. Perchance she was not the only one so affected. She found herself agreeing with Yvain, but wasn’t quite sure what the captain was about.

  “We have the means for passing news quickly,” Yvain explained, sweeping an arm about to indicate the room. “It is our function, after all. There are a lot of us, tolerably well mounted, so we can get about quickly. We are armed. If we were to stumble upon a raid in progress, even our fearless duke would expect us to pitch in and shove it back out to sea.”

  “You’re talking about seeking the raiders out, though,” Robart said, before emotion could sweep sense away. “Aren’t you? And doing it without orders. You’re talking treason.”

  “I am talking about stopping trouble, if we should happen to hear of it. Swinging a bit wide of our routes to do it, perhaps.” Yvain gave him an ingenuous grin.

  “Happen to hear of it?” Robart queried, shaking his head.

  Yvain turned the full force of his smile upon Druyan. “What do you say, Lady? Will you help us? Be our ears?

  Catching the Wind

  Druyan could have had a bed—any one of the post riders would gladly have slept in an empty stall to give his sleeping pallet up for her—but she wanted to return to Splaine Garth before her nerve failed her. Or something else, less under her control, did.

  “What if he’s gone?” she whispered into the black ear cocked back to catch her speech, while she and Valadan flew through the last rags of the night. The ends of the stallion’s mane fanned her cheeks, like sable moths’ wings.

  If he has gone, I will trail him, the stallion assured her, unconcerned.

  “He may have taken one of the coursers,” Druyan fretted. “I promised him a horse. The fastest ones went with Travic, and the army’s got them now, but—” She could not relax. Too large a portion of the new-hatched scheme depended upon Kellis. If he had considered their bargain early concluded and vanished, what would she do?

  If he is on a horse, he will only be easier to find. Valadan sounded amused. The long run had put him in a good temper—as had Yvain’s exclamation at the sight of him . Robart might be steadfast in his dismissal of the stallion as just a nobly named black horse, but Yvain and the other Riders had been willing to see the truth that stood munching hay in the ducal stables, and had made much of him.

  When they turned down the familiar lane, the sun had risen just high enough to throw their shadows before them. There was a dew halo about the shadows—Druyan started at the sight. Their dark shapes were clothed in a moving rainbow. Was that a blessing on the task they’d set themselves to? A portent of success?

  The beneficent light dimmed—thin clouds were crossing the sun’s face. Druyan dismounted and undid the gate, then led Valadan through. She pulled his saddle off at once and turned him out into the orchard to take his ease. As she left him, he was already lowering himself to the ground, indulging in a back-scratching roll, his legs waving in the mommg air.

  It felt strange to have her feet on the ground, as she walked toward the barn—she and Valadan had been one creature for so much of the past day-span of hours, and when she was astride him she had not felt the uncertainty, the trepidation that she felt now, alone on her own two legs.

  The saddle needed to be cleaned and oiled. The stirrup leathers had developed a squeak as she came homeward. It could wait. She set the tack aside and went to find Kellis.

  She found him stacking the turves he’d cut from the peaty edge of the marsh, arranging them into roof peaks as Dalkin had taught him, so they’d catch a drying breeze more surely and would shed any rainfall quickly. It would be autumn ere all the moisture was out of them and the turves were ready to burn. The bricks of soil would have become light shingles of fuel.

  The sea was the color of the post riders’ garb, and the marsh was mostly a gently rippling green. Kellis’ eyes picked up touches of both colors, as if the goldish gray was but a mirror to whatever his eyes looked upon. Shadows crossed them, like clouds, as Druyan told him how matters had gone at Keverne.

  “I have their routes and schedules from Robart,” Druyan said. “So I can reach the nearest, whenever there’s a raid to warn of. It’ll be faster than guessing where they should be.”

  Kellis said nothing. His left eyelid was twitching like the hide of a horse pestered by flies.

  “The Riders have been passing news about the raids all along,” Druyan went on, wishing he’d make a conversation of it with her. She couldn’t tell what the man was thinking—all his face showed was his unhappiness. “Trying to help the army get to the trouble in time. It never helped—now we know why that was! Brioc thought it useless, he never tried. He sent the army away to cut trees! So the Riders will turn now to rallying whatever local support there is.”

  “And you will go with them, Lady?” His voice was carefully neutral, and his eyes were on the limitless sky overhead.

  “I’ll help them as I can.” If I ask him, I think he ’ll refuse, D
ruyan thought. It’s no part of our bargain, but I must not let him see that. She used her best weapon. “I don’t want to see another Teilo.”

  He nodded, resigned to it, and did not shift his eyes to hers or return his gaze to the sky. The wind stirred his thistledown-colored hair.

  “If it makes you feel any easier,” Druyan said, “my brother Robart’s no happier about trusting you than you are about being trusted.

  Lady, don’t mock me.”

  “I’m not.” The bleakness of his tone made her falter, like a stumbling horse. “I swear to you, Kellis, I’m not. But the raiders will come, whether I trust you or I don’t trust you. And if a warning comes too late, it’s no worse than if it didn’t come at all.” She sighed. “I don’t see the dangers the way you do, and I don’t think you can teach me to. Right now, I’m going home and to bed.”

  He raised that brow at her.

  “I don’t need you to tell me that it’s safe, no. There’s no smell of sea to this wind.” Druyan lifted a hand, letting the air pass between her fmgers. “There’s rain in it, though. Finish this up by sun-high, and then find yourself some work to do in the barn, if you don’t fancy a soaking.”

  Kellis stayed at the edge of the marsh long after spatters of rain had turned to a steady fall. The wind was not particularly chill, and it was clean to his nose and his lungs. The barn would smell of chickens. No use to think how he should have gone when he had the chance. He knew very well that he could have outwitted the dog, had he chosen. He knew very well that he was bound to Splaine Garth now, as if with fetters of cold iron.

  He watched the falling drops pock the surface of the rivulet he sat beside. No danger of visions in it—the top layer was too roiled to mirror even the real world about it All the surface gave off was a sparkle, now and again. The water danced to the prompting of wind and tide. accepting new water from the falling rain without a qualm—Kellis wished he could be more like that water, taking whatever came, urrtroubled beneath. He could not. He was too much aware of consequences.