“There’s a trick to fighting Dry-towners; you have to watch both hands, because they’re as good with those damned little daggers they wear as any of us is with an honest sword, and when you have your sword engaged, they’ll come at you with the other hand, and bury the dagger in your ribs; They’re trained to fight with both hands.”
“Be sure to warn the men against that, Larion,” he said, and rode on, deep in thought. What an honor it would be to him, if he could capture the clingfire intact and take it back to King Ardrin! Like most soldiers, he hated clingfire, thinking it a coward’s weapon, although he knew the strategic importance it could have in burning an enemy’s objective. At least he could make sure it would not be hurled against the towers of Asturias! Or used to burn their woodlands!
They made camp that night over the borders of Asturias, in a small village which lay on the outskirts of the Plains of Valeron, a no-man’s-land which owed allegiance to no king, and the villagers gathered sullenly around Bard’s men as if they would have denied them leave to camp there. Then, looking at the three leroni in their gray robes, they scowled and withdrew.
“These lands,” Bard said to Beltran, as they dismounted, “should be under allegiance to some lord; it is dangerous having them here, ready to shelter outlaws and bandits and perhaps open to some malcontent who could set himself up as king or baron here.”
Beltran looked scornfully around, at the lean fields of scanty grain, the orchards of sparse trees of poor-quality nuts, some so scanty of leaves that the farmers had been reduced to growing mushrooms on them. “Who would bother? They can pay no tribute. It would be a poor lord indeed who would stoop to conquer such folk! What honor could an eagle have in battling an army of rabbithorns?”
“That’s not the point,” Bard said. “The point is, that some enemy to Asturias could come here and put them against us, so that we would have enemies on our very borders. I shall speak to my lord the king about it, and perhaps next spring he will send me here, to make certain that if they pay no tribute to Asturias, at least they will pay none to Ridenow or Serrais! Will you speak with the men and make sure all is in good order, or shall I?”
“Oh, I’ll do it,” Beltran said with a yawn. “I suppose they must know that their prince cares for their welfare. I don’t know much of soldiering, but there are enough veterans here who can tell me if there is anything amiss.”
Bard smiled wryly as Beltran went off. Beltran knew little of military tactics, perhaps; but he knew enough of statecraft so that he wanted to win the men’s liking and allegiance. A king ruled by the loyalty of his soldiers. Beltran was intelligent enough to know that Bard had the military command of this campaign; it could hardly be otherwise. But he was taking no chances that the men would think their prince indifferent to their personal welfare! Bard watched Prince Beltran go from man to man, making inquiries about their horses, their blankets and gear, their rations. The mess cooks were building fires and something was stewing in a cookpot. It smelled extremely good, after a long day of riding, with no more noon meal than a hunk of hard journey-bread and a handful of nuts!
Left for a moment without occupation, he found himself drifting in the direction of the place, somewhat apart, where the leroni had their camp. The memory of the eyes of the pretty Mirella was like a magnet; she could not have been much more than fifteen.
He found her making a fire. A tent had been pitched, and through the fabric he could see the hefty form of the leronis Melora moving around inside. He knelt beside her and said, “May I offer you fire, damisela? ” He held out the oil-fed flint-striker which was simpler to use than an ordinary tinder-box.
She did not turn her eyes toward him. He could see the blush he found so adorable, flooding over her pale neck.
She said, “I thank you, my lord. But I do not need it.” And indeed, as she gazed at the piled tinder, her hand laid on the silken bag at her throat where, he guessed, she kept the starstone, the tinder burst suddenly into flame.
He laid a light hand on her wrist and whispered, “If you would only look into my eyes, damisela, I too would burst into flame.”
She turned a little toward him, and although she did not raise her eyes, be saw the curve of a faint smile at the corners of her mouth.
Suddenly a shadow fell across them.
“Mirella,” said Master Gareth sternly, “get inside the tent and help Melora with your bedding.”
Coloring, she rose quickly and hurried inside the tent. Bard rose too, angrily, facing the elderly sorcerer.
“With all respect, I warn you, vai dom,” Master Gareth said, “do your wenching elsewhere. That one is not for you.”
“What is it to you, old man? Is she your daughter? Or perhaps your light-o-love, or handfasted bride?” Bard demanded in a rage. “Or have you won her loyalty with your spells?”
Master Gareth shook his head, smiling. “None of those,” he said, “but on campaign I am responsible for the women who ride with me, and they are not to be touched.”
“Except, perhaps, by you?”
Again the silent headshake and the smile. “You know nothing of the world in which the leroni live, sir. Melora is my daughter; I will not have her touched by casual amours except at her own wish. As for Mirella, she is to be kept virgin for the Sight, and there is a curse on any who should take her, unless she resigns it of her free will. I warn you, avoid her.”
Stung, red-faced, feeling like a scolded schoolboy before the level eyes of the old sorcerer, Bard bent his head and muttered, “I did not know.”
“No, and that is why I am telling you,” said the old man genially. “For Mirella was too shy to do so herself. She is not accustomed to men who cannot read her thoughts.”
Bard cast a resentful look toward the tent. He thought it should have been the fat and ugly Melora, the old man’s daughter, kept virgin for the Sight, for what man would want her unless he could first hide her face with a horse bag? Why the pretty Mirella? Master Gareth was still smiling amiably, but Bard had the uncanny sudden sense that the old man was actually reading his mind.
“Come, come, sir,” said Master Gareth with a good-natured grin, “you are handfasted to the princess Carlina. It’s not worthy of you to look to a simple leronis. Lie alone tonight, and perhaps you will dream of the high-born woman who waits at home for you. After all, you can’t have every woman on whom you cast your roving eyes. Don’t show such ugly temper!”
Bard ripped out a curse and turned away. He knew enough not to anger a laranzu, on whom the fate of the campaign might rest, but the old man’s voice, as if he spoke to the greenest of boys, infuriated him. What business was it of Master Gareth’s?
The servant who rode to attend on the officers had made a small third camp for them, apart from the others. Bard went to taste the food cooked for the men—he had learned never to eat his own meal until horses and men were safely settled for the night—and to inspect the picket lines of the horses, then came back to find Beltran awaiting him.
“You look ill-tempered, Bard. What ails you?”
“Damned old bird of prey,” Bard growled. “Afraid I should touch his precious maiden leroni, when I did no more than offer the young one a bit of tinder!”
Beltran chuckled. “Well, it’s a compliment, Bard. He knows you have a way with the women! Your reputation, after all, has simply preceded you, that is all, and he is afraid no maiden could resist you, nor retain her maidenhood in your presence!”
Put like that, Bard began to recover a little of his self-esteem, to feel less like a reprimanded schoolboy.
“As for me,” Beltran said, “I feel it’s wrong to bring women on campaign—good women, that is. I suppose any army should have camp followers, though I’ve no taste for them myself. If I must have women about, I prefer the kind who look as if they washed more often than when they got caught out of doors during the fall rains! But good women with a campaign are a temptation to the unchaste, and an annoyance to the chaste whose mind is on their business of f
ighting!”
Bard nodded, admitting the justice of what Beltran said. “And what’s more, if they’re available, the men will fight over ’em; and if they’re not, they’ll moon about over them,” he said.
Beltran said, “Should the day come when I command my father’s armies, I will forbid any leronis to ride with the army; there are laranzu’in enough, and myself I think men better at that kind of skill; women are too squeamish and have no place with an army, no more than Carlina or one of our baby brothers ! How old is your little brother now?”
“He must be eight now,” Bard said. “Nine at midwinter. I wonder if he has forgotten me? I have not been home since my father sent me here for fostering.”
Beltran patted his shoulder in sympathy. He said, “Well, well, no doubt you can have leave to go home before midwinter.”
“If the fighting in Hammerfell is over before the snow closes the roads,” Bard said, “I will do so. My foster mother does not love me, but she cannot keep me from home. It would be good to see if Alaric still holds me in affection.” To himself he thought that perhaps he would ask his father to come to his wedding. It was not every one of the king’s fosterlings who would be joined in catenas marriage by King Ardrin himself!
They sat late talking, and when at last they slept, Bard was well content. He thought briefly and with regret, of the pretty Mirella, but after all, what Master Gareth had said was true: he had Carlina, and soon enough they would be married. Beltran was right, after all. Virtuous women had no place with the king’s armies.
The next morning, after a brief conference with Master Gareth and Beltran, they turned their steps toward the ford of Moray’s Mills. No one now alive knew who Moray might have been, though stories in the countryside made him everything from a giant to a dragon keeper: but there was still a ruined mill near the ford, and a little upstream from it another mill still in operation. A toll gate closed the road, and as Bard’s men came toward it, the toll-keeper, a fat and graying man, came out to say, “By order of the Lord of Dalereuth, this road is closed, my lords. I have sworn not to open for anyone who does not pay him tribute, or have his safe-conduct within his borders.”
“Now, by all of Zandru’s hells—” Bard began, but Prince Beltran rode forward, looming over the little man in his miller’s apron.
“I am very willing to pay a head tax to the Lord of Dalereuth.” he said. “I am sure he would appreciate the head of an insolent fellow like you. Rannvil—” he gestured, and one of the horsemen drew his sword. “Open the gates, man; don’t be a fool.”
The toll-keeper, his teeth chattering, went to the mechanism that trundled the great toll gate aside. Beltran contemptuously flung the man a few coins. “Here’s your tribute. But if this gate is barred against us when we come back, take my word for it, I’ll have my men tear it out of the ground and set your head on top of it to scare away crows!”
As they passed through, Bard heard the man grumbling and leaned down from his horse to grab him by the shoulder.
“Whatever you said, say it aloud to our faces, you!”
The man looked up, his jaw set and wrathful. He said, “I have no part in the quarrels of my betters, vai dom. Why should I suffer because you noblemen can’t keep your borders? All I care about is running my mill. But you won’t come back this way, or at all. I have nothing to do with what waits for you at the ford yonder. Now, if you wish, win honor by killing an unarmed man!”
Bard let him go and straightened up. He said, “Kill you? Why? Thanks for your warning; you’ve been well paid.” He watched the man go off toward his mill, and although he had been a soldier since his fourteenth year, he frowned and suddenly wondered why it should be this way. Why should every nobleman who chose demand that he be sovereign over his own land? That only made more work for mercenaries.
Perhaps, he thought, all this land should be under one rule, with peace at the borders, from the Hellers to the sea. . . and little men like this could grow their crops and turn their mills in peace. . . and I could live on the estates the king has given me, with Carlina. . . .
But there was no leisure to think of that now. He called urgently to Master Gareth, raising his hand to halt the men.
“I have had a warning,” he said, “that something waits for us at that ford; but I see nothing. Does your bird give you warning, or has either of your women seen anything by their spells?”
Master Gareth beckoned to Mirella, shrouded in her cloak, and spoke to her, softly. She took her starstone from about her throat and gazed into it.
After a moment she said, in a low, neutral voice, “There is neither man nor beast at the ford to wait for us; but there is darkness there, and a barrier we may not be able to pass. We must go with great care, kinsman.”
Master Gareth raised his eyes and met Bard’s. He said, “She has the Sight; if there is a darkness that she cannot penetrate, we must indeed go with the greatest of care, sir.”
But the ford lay calm and peaceful in the sunlight, shallow ripples swirling with glints of crimson. Bard frowned, trying to assess what lay before them. He could see nothing, no signs of ambush, no twig or branch stirring on the far side of the ford, where a path led up between overgrown trees. That would, indeed, be a good place for ambush.
“If you cannot see beyond the ford by sorcery or the Sight,” he said, “can the sentry bird pass and see if there is any ambush hidden beyond?”
Master Gareth nodded. “To be sure; the bird is only a beast and has nothing to do with sorcery or the magic of the trained mind. The only magic about the bird is the skill Melora and I have to remain in rapport with the creature. Melora,” he called, “child, let the sentry bird go.”
Bard watched as the fierce bird rose high over the ford, circling. After a time, Master Gareth shook himself, waked, beckoned to Melora, who reached out her hand and took the bird as it came circling back, stroking its feathers and feeding it tidbits before slipping the hood over its head. Master Gareth said, “There is no one, man or beast, hidden beyond the ford; no living creature for many leagues except a girl herding a flock of rabbithorns. Whatever waits here at the ford, vai dom, it is not an ambush of armed men.”
Bard and Beltran exchanged glances. Finally Beltran said, “We cannot wait here all day for a terror no one can see. I think we must ride to the ford; but Master Gareth, stay back, for we must keep you in reserve if you are needed. I have known sorcerers to set a forest or a field ablaze in the path of armies on the march; and I suppose there could be something like that beyond the ford. We must be wary of that. Bard, will you order the men to ride?”
Bard’s skin prickled. He had had this reaction once or twice before in the presence of laran; he had little enough of it himself, but somehow he could scent it. There was, he knew, a talent which could sniff out the use of laran; perhaps, if he had been trained in its use, he would have had that. It might have been useful after all. He had always thought that Geremy, training as a laranzu, was somehow less a man, less a soldier, than Beltran and himself. Now, watching Master Gareth, he began to realize that this work might have its own dangers and terrors, even though a laranzu rode unarmed into battle. That, in itself, might be frightening enough, Bard thought, laying his hand for reassurance on his sword.
He turned to the men and commanded, “Count off by fours!” He could not order any man to be first to ride into some unknown terror. When they had done so, he said, “Group two, ride forward,” and took lead of them.
His skin prickled again as he rode forward, and his horse tossed her head in protest as she set a fastidious foot within the ford; but the water was quiet, and he gave the order.
“Ride, slowly, keep together!”
Above them, at the very edge of his vision, he saw a flicker of motion. He thought Master Gareth had recalled the sentry bird.... A quick glance showed him that Melora’s bird sat, hooded and quiet, on the woman’s saddle. So, they were being watched from afar. Was there any defense against that?
They were
in the center of the ford now, the water at its deepest swirling around the hocks of the horses; thigh-deep on a tall man. One of his soldiers said, “There’s nothing here, sir. We can call the others to come.”
Bard shook his head. Inwardly he felt that prickling that warned of danger, growing, so that he clamped his teeth, wondering if he would spew up his breakfast like a breeding woman....
He heard Master Gareth shouting, wheeled his horse in midstream. “Back,” he yelled. “Get back—”
The water swirled upward, rising around his horses’ withers, and suddenly the peaceful ford was a raging, foaming torrent, a racing undertow sucking, pulling. He felt his horse stumble under him as if he had ridden into a mountain stream swollen by spring thaw into furious rapids. Witch-waters! He tugged at the reins, trying to soothe his neighing, plunging horse, hold her steady, against the threat of being swept away downstream. Around him every one of the group was struggling with horses maddened with fear at the peaceful water suddenly gone wild. Cursing, fighting his terrified horse, Bard managed to get her under control, urge her back toward the water’s edge. He saw one of his men slip from his saddle, go down into the torrent. Another horse stumbled, and Bard reached over and grabbed the rein, trying to hold his own horse with one hand.
“Hold them! In the name of all the gods, hold them! Back to the bank!” he shouted. “Keep together!”
The surprise was the worst; his horse was used to mountain streams and fords. Warned in advance, he could perhaps have held her against this. Gripping with his knees, urging her carefully against the water that now raced up to her neck, he managed to get her back to dry land, stood grabbing the bridles of the others as they came up. One horse was down and had broken a leg; it lay kicking, screaming like a woman in the torrent, until it drowned. Bard swore, his throat tight. The poor creature had never harmed any living thing, and it had died a terrible death. Of the rider there was no sign. Another horse had gone down, and its rider, leaping off into the water, had managed to get it up, limping, and drag it back to the shore; he went down himself and floundered, half-drowned, until one of the men, leaping down the bank, grabbed him and hauled him out.
Darkover: First Contact Page 25
