by Susan Dexter
So each night a wolf ranged out from Splaine Garth, once the Lady Druyan was out of obvious danger. Kellis trotted upcoast and down, putting his long wolf’s nose into every secluded cove and inlet, stalking to the top of every spit of rock and sand, no matter how insignificant. Settlements he steered well clear of, not so much out of fear of discovery as because he had no need to inspect such places. Inhabited spots offered no concealment. And the Eral had a fondness for garlic in their cookery. He could detect a lack of the herb a long distance off.
He had worn his pads so thin that he limped even as a man, with his broken boots packed full of soft wool plucked on the sly from the new lambs. But Kellis found no sign of the raiders save their customary destruction. This was not a waste of effort—it told Kellis that the base, wherever it was, was likely not on the coast itself, but just off it. Easily reached by the Erals’ sea-snake ships. An island or a peninsula that was an island at all save neap-tide times. Wherefore he turned to studying the birds, which could readily go where a wolf could not. Kellis could swim as a wolf, but not for long in Esdragon’s pounding, shifty surf.
Some few of his people had the knack of shifting to more than one form. It was tricky work—the natural leaning tended toward the animal the Clan had long ago taken as its totem—wolf, or deer, or marten. There was a Hawk Clan, but they were very few, even before the Eral raids began to thin out or wipe out the Clans. Kellis had never encountered one of the Hawk shape-shifters.
To shift to anything other than wolf—which felt so natural, its long-furred pelt by long practice his second skin—required meticulous observation and careful concentration. And even then he could hold the form only for a moment, because it felt so unwolf that he kept startling out of it. Kellis worked at it for a week before he could hold feathered form reliably.
He discovered next that he loathed heights, a nasty liability he had likely gained from his dealings with the kitchen roof. And there was a further handicap—he didn’t in his heart believe that he could fly. And that was the whole point to his being a bird, besides flight being the very essence of the shape-shifted creature.
Without belief, action came very hard. Kellis climbed a tree, finally. and shifted there to his new-learned shape. That way he had to fly, however poorly. There was no chance for second thoughts about it, nothing to permit failure. He gilded down, terrified, tumbling the last hit of the way till the ground caught him, but doing himself no lasting damage.
The next stage involved a seaside cliff, and Kellis got his shifted wings spread wide just as waves were about to claim him—and went skimming off above the water, master of the air at last. Beats of his wings gained him altitude, and when he reached the clifftops he swung inland and landed by crashing into a gorse bush.
He switched to daylight flights at that point, ready to commence his search. At first he was disoriented whenever he ventured out of sight of the farm buildings. He was used to orienting by scent, and as a bird his sense of smell was poor. But better vision compensated—Kellis methodically learned landmarks along the coast from his new perspective and went skimming from one to the next, surely the most timid crow in all of Esdragon. Each flight took him farther ere he was lost, and the practice made him a marginally better flier.
In the end, it wasn’t all that much of a flight, once he got past the point of needing to hug the coastline closely to know where he was. Kellis flew high over the boar spine of the Promontoiy and saw the object of his quest lying below him—a jumble of stone with one rock bigger than the rest, a tiny island with its cliffs on the one side battered down by the surf so that there was room for a score of ships to be safely beached. It couldn’t be seen from the shore—the rough anchorage faced the open sea. Only a bird could spy the black ships, the activity all along the islet’s perimeter. There was no smoke. Somehow the Era] had agreed among themselves to forgo cooking fires that might have given the secret away.
Kellis howled in triumph, but the sound came out a croaking caw. He wasn’t sufficiently master of his wings to risk a landing—even for much-needed rest—so the crow that beat its way back against the wind toward Splaine Garth was weary and windblown. Finally he spotted a familiar orchard and gratefully angled his sore wings for his descent.
“That crow looks big enough to take a sheep.” Enna observed, squinting over the bowl of bramble berries Dalkin had just brought from the patch. “You want to keep that lot out of the fields, when the grain comes on,” she instructed the boy. “Look sharp to it.”
“It’s early to worry about that,” Druyan said thankfully. She did not want to think about the harvest’s approach, or its problems. She filched a berry from the bowl and popped it into her mouth. It was tart and delectable, the essence of summer.
The black bird teetered on the top fence rail, spreading its wings for balance. Dalkin shied a pebble at it, in practice for his upcoming duties as living scarecrow. There was a startled squawk. The bird rose into the air. Loose feathers flew to one side as it tumbled down behind the fence. There followed a very loud thump, and a curse.
Druyan made a squawk of her own and rushed to the fence.
Kellis lay sprawled on the far side of the rails, blinking dazedly at the sky and green leaves above him. He raised his head and touched his shoulder, where a long graze had begun to weep drops of blood.
Enna, running after Druyan, shrieked at the sight of him—naked as the day his mother bore him, lying shamelessly in front of her lady. Dalkin babbled shrill protests of his innocence. Kellis felt of his head, winced, and shifted his whole attention to Druyan, who had ducked under the fence to kneel by his side.
“Lady, there is something I must tell you.” He tried to sit up, and got as far as propping himself on his elbows before the edges of the day wobbled distressingly. “I—” He lost the thread of what he’d been trying to say. Something about flying? His arms and shoulders ached, it was all he could do to move them.
“I didn’t know you could do birds,” Druyan interrupted, amazed.
“I’m not sure I can. Did I crash?” His head throbbed. Kellis realized suddenly that the accident had thrown him out of his precariously held bird-form, which only redonbled his dismay. What had happened? Only a serious injury should make him lose control that way; anything else was inexcusable among his people. He felt sick to his stomach and was unsure whether the trouble was shame or too-rapid shape-shifting. If he’d been struck with cold iron—but all he could remember was trying to land. Try as he might, he couldn’t get past that.
“Crash? Not without help! Target practice, I think,” Druyan said. “From someone who plainly doesn’t require any.” She glared at Dalkin, through the fence.
“I didn’t know!” Dalkin wailed again. “How could I know?”
“You indecent wretch! What sort of work do you call this?” Enna flung the berries, bowl and all, in Kellis’ face. The wooden bowl missed, but the berries hit and left purple splotches all over him. He wiped some away and stared confusedly at his fingers.
“I just threw a rock at a crow,” Dalkin whined. “I didn’t know you were over here!”
“That was fine work,” Enna answered. “Don’t repent it. Go fetch me a stick, boy.”
“No!” Druyan said angrily. She unclasped her cloak and swept it over Kellis, as much to silence Enna as to stop his shivering. “Are you hurt?” she asked him.
“No—” He didn’t see how he could be. And if Enna wanted a stick, he could guess very well what she wanted it for. He needed to get up and get some distance on her but everything seemed too dark to Kellis, as if masked by a pall of smoke, and he still felt on the edge of being ill, as if he’d fed on carrion too long ripened. He sat up, but that was as far as he could get. Escape didn’t seem an option.
By the time the faintness had mostly passed, he and Druyan were alone—Enna sent protesting to fetch some herbs, Dalkin gathering blankets and bringing cold water from the well. Kellis took one deep, slow breath, then another. He sighed. The ground f
elt solid under him for the first time.
Druyan was parting his hair with her fingers, trying to decide whether he’d hit his head on anything more hazardous than grass-covered dirt. She pulled out two small feathers and an apple leaf. “Hold still. I won’t hurt you.”
Kellis sat still, to let his head finish clearing. “Enna’s never going to forgive this.”
“She’ll get over it,” Druyan said stemly. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Tell you?” Kellis frowned.
“You said you had to tell me something,” Druyan prompted.
“I—I think I can remember saying that.” Kellis began to feel sick once more.
“Well? What was it?
l don’t know.” He frowned again, but the memory was a cold trail, not a wisp of it left to guide him.
“Maybe it wasn’t important. You’ll have a bruise here, but I think that’s all,” she said, and took her fingers away. “When did you learn to do birds?”
“Just lately.” Kellis shivered. “But I don’t think that was it.” He rubbed his forehead, trying to pull the memory out physically, as if it might be lodged just under his berrystained skin.
Try as he might, he couldn’t recall what he had wanted to tell her. He could remember that he had felt urgent about it, but that was all. The memory was out of reach, and whenever he stretched for it he felt a nasty plummeting sensation. as if he were falling from a great height. He wasn’t going to fly again, Kellis thought, more relieved than sad. He couldn’t imagine why he’d ever wanted to leave the safe solid earth behind.
The Horse Fair
Seven sunfalls never passed without a horseman garbed in sea blue topped by black-sheep’s gray appearing at Splaine Garth’s gate—Riders pausing to pay their respects to one of their own, maimed risking what they had all risked, reassuring themselves that she was as well as might be and lacked foranothingr they could provide. Finally ’twas Robart who rode up to the much-mended gate, with unwelcome tidings.
“A horse tithe?” Druyan asked, aghast. She could not stop her glance from darting toward Valadan, busy grazing down the grass that sprang up untidily between the yard’s cobbles no matter how she tried to keep after it.
“This year only,” Robart explained soothingly. “Two horses, and you’re allowed to choose them. Though of course landholders are expected to choose well. Sacrificially well.”
Druyan felt her muscles relax, though she had been unaware of them going twanging tight—they had done thatin an eyeblink. She still felt a touch ill, as if the new-laid egg Enna had cooked for her breakfast had been week old and beginning to grow into a featherless chicken.
“Selling off his own herds isn’t enough for Brioc?” she asked bitterly.
“No.” Robart laughed. “Not nearly. He’s just learned what sail canvas will cost, probably. Don’t fret about your Valadan—to any save the Riders, what is he but an old horse? Send two of Travic’s coursers—they’re bloodstock and should fetch a price to satisfy our uncle.”
“The army still has some of our coursers. And nothing will fetch much of a price, with half the horseflesh in Esdragon put on the block!” Druyan’s eyes flashed.
“Brioc’s been told that—I spoke to Siarl myself, he told me. As you can see, our duke takes no counsel from it.” Robart sipped the cider Enna had fetched. “Anyway, the coursers will suit, and I shouldn’t think Travic will rnind.”
“No, he—”
“How long has it been, sister?”
Druyan’s tongue went to stone, her lips to ice. She wanted to leap to her feet, but not a muscle would obey her. Or was she best to stay still and feign ignorance?
“Yvain told me what he suspected, what he learned when he made inquiries.” Her brother’s blue eyes transfixed her. The gold spot was bright as if shaved from a coin. “He said he thought you were trying to freehold.”
Mute, trapped, Druyan nodded. So, the disaster had come at last. Her own fault—she had begun to hope, now that the time drew near to its close. That hope alone had attracted fate’s attention, and she was undone.
“Well, you’re doing a fine job,” Robart said unexpectedly. “The farm looks just as Travic would have wished it to. How much longer do you have?”
“Travic was killed just before the barley harvest last year.” It was difficult to admit it after hiding it so closely for so long, but Druyan felt a measure of relief as she said the words aloud. Seasons had passed, come nearly full circle. Already the green heads were beginning to bend the barley stalks perceptibly. There was barely another month to run, ere she and Kellis were both free, before she was safe and he was off to whatever fate he stubbornly sought. I must keep back one decent horse somehow, Druyan thought, remembering she had promised one such to him. And figure out how to bring this years crop in. At least they can’t throw me off the land for failing this time.
“Yvain is planning to ask Brioc for you,” Robart said casually.
Druyan’s head jerked up so suddenly that her neck cracked. “He’s what?”
“You have awhile—Yvain has to be careful, because there are those who’d claim you just to get the land, Travic’s heirs. He’s got to ride delicately around those, not let them suspect—”
“Travic didn’t have much family.” She had thought about that very carefully, to know where the dangers ahead lay.
“Amazing how blood-ties out, though, when there’s land at stake. There are two possible candidates besides Yvain, and it will be a close race when it comes to it, sister.” He sipped again. “You press fine cider here.”
“Darlith’s famous apples. All we do is gather them in, Rohan. So, if I don’t accept Yvain, I’ll go to whoever’s at his heels?”
“Not accept him?” Robart looked puzzled at that unthinkable choice. “Why ever not? We’re talking of Yvain here. They sing songs about him, you know. Ballads of thirty verses.”
Druyan sniffed. “They can sing all they want. Should I wed again for a song? Robart, I’m almost free.”
“Free?” He snorted at that himself. “What does that mean? Do you fear Yvain wouldn’t be good to you? That’s groundless. He worships you. He’s heads above anything the family could have got for your dowry, and he’s not an old man like Travic. He’s—”
“I suppose you’d buy a horse you didn’t need and didn’t especially want, just because the price was right?” Druyan pleaded, knowing he’d never see it her way, would never consider that it might differ from his own.
Robart frowned. “I might. Horses can go lame. I suppose that doesn’t apply so aptly to husbands. But just you remember, Druyan, you really don’t have the right to turn him down. And if you do somehow manage it, your hand and this farm will go to someone. I’d not be so quick to spurn the likes of Yvain. Unless you’ve cause?” He cocked a brow.
“None you’d understand,” Druyan whispered. To speak of her barrenness, even before her own brother, was impossible. She could not find words to tell him what having something of her own meant to her, nor to express the pain of seeing that goal so near when ’twas snatched away. Kinder if it had happened before Travic was cold in the ground.
Druyan chose to conduct her tithe to the horse fair personally. She had the past two winters’ worth of fine-woven cloth to sell and no objection to finding a broader market for her work than the local market fair. She rode Valadan while Kellis drove the wagon with the tithe—two long-legged dark chestnut brothers—tethered to its footboard. The horses were the best her holding boasted, save for Valadan himself—Druyan would not risk taking a tithe that might be rejected as unsalable and thereby call attention to Splaine Garth and its unattended lady. Yvain was enough to fret her.
The weather turned hot and close, unrelieved by the scattered rainstorms, and the nearer they drew to Keverne the deeper the dust lay on the roads. Those narrow ways were crowded, too—Druyan was hardly the only farmer forced to pay a new tithe that year and bound for the fair to deliver it. Valadan made a way for them handily—p
olite enough, his manners impeccable, but brooking no disrespect from strangers. Even so, their progress tended to be sluggish.
She had allowed them a full sevenday to reach the fair, so as not to take condition off the tithe horses by traveling too fast. They needed most of that time to contend with the choked roads. Druyan wondered betimes if the wagon had not been a foolish indulgence—she might have packed her cloth on a sumpter horse, and then they’d have been free to quit the roads when progress got too slow. She had dust powdering every inch of her, and Valadan’s coat had begun to look dapple gray. Kellis’ brows were as white as the hair on his head. They were both coughing. So were the chestnuts, but that passed off after they’d grazed awhile without breathing in more dust than they could snort out again.
The horse fair was always a huge event. This year there were more horses sent to it and more paying customers invited. The one notable difference was that every horse brought was sold by the Duke of Esdragon. The side sales that throve in other years were stemly prohibited. Not every horse trader had known that beforetime, and there was grumbling aplenty for Druyan to overhear, as she stood patiently waiting to turn over her tithe.
She remembered both the chestnuts as foals—indeed, she would have seen them come from their mother, save that the mare had been too secretive to deliver while a human soul was anywhere near. She tried not to dwell on the memories as she stood with them one last time, the elder nibbling at her fingers on his lead, rubbing his head against her, while the younger one took in every strange sound or sight with keenest interest. They were quite alike, copies save for the younger having three spots of white upon his face where his elder brother had but a single one. Whatsoever one had done, the other had done just the year after. They had never been apart in their lives, but she had no say in their fates now. Druyan hoped she’d be well out of earshot by the time the colts discovered themselves going separate ways.
