by Andre Norton
"This filth—" Spittle flaked the corners of his mouth. "Take—take—" Then his head turned a fraction more and it was plain that he was looking straight at the
Queen.
"So." It was not a roar this time, but far from the speech of a sane man. "My very dear wife, my sweetling, sworn to me by all the Powers." His voice had turned unnerv-ingly gentle. At the same time, the cruel rage that had galvanized him before shifted and became something darker, something worse. "How well you look, in your Oak crimson. Have you found a new woman to paint your face? I have not seen you so beautiful in years. Come you hither, my love's own heart, for we have great matters to talk about." He gave a last kick to the moaning squire and held out his hand to Queen Ysa in a grotesque parody of one about to lead a partner into a formal dance.
She did not falter, only held her hands in fists now pressed tightly against her, hidden in the folds of her skirts, finding consolation in the warmth of the
Rings. They had accepted her, but what use she could make of them in this coil, she had no idea—yet. He was now standing aside, in absurd mimicry of a mannered gentleman, and she must proceed him into his chamber. She ached with the tension of her body as she fought against any sign of fear. She passed him silently with her head high.
As she swept past, the odor of sweat and wine fumes nearly made her sick.
Calmly, she went to the long table at the foot of the bed, where two six-branched candlesticks sat along with a goblet and the wine flask. Willing her hand not to tremble, she picked up a candlestick on which two candles were crowned with flame and proceeded to light the others. To face this meeting, she felt that she must have light. Only—only the confrontation had come so soon! Too soon? She dared not allow herself to think of that.
The door slammed shut behind her almost as violently as it had crashed open, and she turned to face Boroth. It was better, she knew from bitter experience, to wait for him to speak first, for her to remain passive. Sometimes that could calm him down. In his present state, he might even strike out at her—or try to do so.
He had come closer than she anticipated, and his flushed, sweating face was too near. How could he have padded across the room without sound? Then she saw the one boot lying near the closed door, and knew.
Now he was licking his lips, his gaze sliding down from meeting hers to fasten on her hands, which she discovered were now open and displaying the Rings, almost unnaturally so, as if the light somehow was drawn to center on them. She had not willed this; it had to be the Rings' doing.
"You do not whore. This is the way of one who would gain power." He appeared to have his violent anger under tight control. "Instead, you thieve. And the price for theft, as you well know—"
He was on her, as a cat might pounce upon some small prey, clutching her right hand with a painful grip, dragging it and her toward the nearest candle.
"Burn, dear wife, the one I lifted to share a throne, while another—Burn and have a taste of how the law is set!"
His fingers had closed as tight as a torturer's irons about her wrist. However, he came only so far toward the candle and no farther. Hard as he tried to force her hand into the flame, he could not move her.
The relief was enough to bring a sob from her throat, one she quickly stifled.
So heartened, she freed herself from his hold. His face lost that darkened hue and began to grow pale as he stared at her, comprehension dawning.
"Oak," she said, beginning the tale of the thumbs and fingers. "Yew, Ash, and
Rowan." She held out both hands, the fingers widespread. "There is no need for force. I did not steal them. Take them back freely if they are truly yours.
Come, Boroth, I implore you. Take them and do with me what you will."
But he was pushing back, away from her. His hand rose as if he would answer her challenge, and then fell again.
"What—" His voice was a shaken whisper. "What witchery have you wrought, you evil creature in woman's shape?"
"I have done nothing, Boroth. Ask yourself what you have done that they left you. They choose. We have read it, both of us." She looked full at him and spoke slowly, with a thread of pause between each word to accent her question the more. "Do you think that that which is the very heart of our land will serve a drunken sot, a creature of some dark choice?"
He found his full voice, but this time his bellow was an outcry of rage and anguish. He reached out and grabbed one of the candelabra, the flames flaring high as he drew back and hurled it straight at her face.
The flames winked out, and the golden holder crashed to the floor at her feet.
It was she who moved now, reaching for the goblet. She filled it to the brim.
Though tempted, she did not fling it at him, though he moved as if to dodge such an attack. Rather, she slid it along the table as she gave him a tight smile.
"Boroth, you have aroused yourself. Men of your kind can die, killed by rage.
Drink, husband, drink once more and forget. This I promise you—life, and among your people, the semblance of what you were. Drink and be satisfied."
His hand twitched toward the goblet. "I swore never again to touch it—"
"It was an oath ill considered. Mine is not. Your body is accustomed to wine, and indeed, it craves wine. Wine is its medicine, the sustenance of its life. To deny it is to order your own death. And hear me further. This I also promise, that this Kingdom and your line I shall serve as best I may. None shall know from me the extent of my rule, for I shall say all decisions come willingly from you, through me, for your steps are lagging and your body must not be put to stress."
He stumbled, demonstrating the truth of her words, but he did not try to pick up the goblet. Rather, he drew himself by handholds around the edge of the bed, as if unable any longer to walk unsupported. Then he fell forward, head down, his legs buckled so that he knelt as one who seeks comfort from the Unknown.
The cramped quarters on board the ship led to difficulties for the sailors going about their duties. But the continuation of the sea as calm as it might ever be, and winds mild and fair, favored them. Those not needed for manning the vessel rolled up in their cloaks, in any corner they could find, to sleep.
AH were weary of the days of skirmishing, followed by the one great battle.
There were many kin whom one would not see in the sword ring again. And then the final humiliation—the destruction of what had been their proudly held keep, and that by their own hands. It was not strange that sleep this night was fitful.
Obern rose at last to wend a way among the sleepers to the prow. No longer would he look back, but forward. A man of courage cut his losses to try again, sharp and wounding as those losses might have been. The moon had risen and now sent a silver path across which their small, battered fleet cut passage.
There were always noises aboard ship, most of them familiar. Timbers creaked under the push of the waves; ropes and canvas sometimes snapped and boomed overhead. This night and on this crowded deck there were also the sounds of sleepers touched by dark dreams, the soft sobbing of a woman, or the slightly louder lulling of a crying child.
For the first time, Obern was glad of the order that had separated families, except for warrior-kin, on this voyage. His hand-fasted beloved, Neave, and their young son were aboard another ship. He missed Neave, yearned for her warmth at night, but knew that he could not have withstood having to endure his family's misery.
Now another sound began, so close to where Obern had positioned himself that he was startled out of his painful memories. He felt his tight hold on the rail relax slowly. It seemed to him that that small throb of drumbeat matched the flow of his blood, shutting failure from his mind, awakening in him a desire to go forward with all his strength.
The few lanterns gave little light, but these, along with the moon, were enough for him to make his way to where he expected to find their wave- reader, Fritji, hunched over his small rhythm drum. To his surprise, he discovered Kasai, the
> Spirit Drummer, instead. Kasai was rubbing his hand across the drum's surface in a pattern that matched the slight rise and fall of the deck on which he crouched. Spirit Drummers were different from wave- readers. Their powers lay in other directions.
Obern approached the drummer and dropped down beside him, knowing that Kasai was aware of his coming, yet did not warn him off. So, this was not one of the great secrets.
"Obern!" It was a whisper, coming out of nowhere, but one that cut through even the drum sound.
He tensed again. That word had been more than recognition; it was a hail such as might summon a scout to a meeting of war chiefs.
"I hear; I come," he found himself repeating, in the formal answer to such a hail.
"Take the hard path; travel it well. It is your task to be eyes and ears—and to give us a harbor once again!"
With a start, Obern realized that Kasai had been the speaker, though the drummer's eyes were shut and he seemed unaware of what he was doing. That meant
Kasai was reading! Obern's hand tightened on the hilt of his long knife. He had never known for himself a reading— had only heard of such. They were few, and those for whom these came were indeed thereafter set apart until some task given them was accomplished. But why him, Obern? He was only backshield to a war chief, and of the blood of that same chief to be sure, but that was all! By the charging of the Steeds of the Great Surf, he was no Battlesworn!
"Follow the way as you see it open…" Kasai's voice trailed into silence. His hand ceased its sweep across the drumhead and he curled himself around his instrument as if sleep had overcome him. Obern knew that there was nothing more to be learned from him now. Perhaps he could ask later, but those who were in the reading trance seldom remembered what had been said.
He pulled Kasai's cloak over him and his precious drum, and then settled his own cloak tighter about himself. He felt cold, cold as if they had taken to a sea where vast ice towers drifted at their will.
Eventually, toward morning, he slept.
Eight
Ashen. "Zazar's voice cut through her dream. Perhaps she had only been dozing.
At least she was already sitting up in her bedplace to answer. Zazar's hand moved. She must have tossed oil on the low flicker of flames; it brought them leaping high. But there was other light, too, one that Zazar summoned on occasions for her own purpose.
Two light-balls bobbed above Zazar's head as she sat on a mat cushion, a mass of tangled cords in her lap and her hands busy sorting out curling ends from a loose ball.
Similar small balls of pallid light might often be sighted in the Bog. Usually they signified danger to any of the folk who had dared the night. It was well known that such led Outlanders astray into the worst of the miry land when they were lost on the fringe of the Bog and took such for a traveler's lantern.
Intrigued, Ashen watched Zazar at her work. There was more than one way of keeping records, as Ashen had learned long before. Squares of stone no thicker than a knife blade were stacked in piles on one of the crowded shelves. When they were washed with a rag dipped in a brew Zazar alone held the secret to, they displayed lines and curves, until the wetness dried. There were four of these blocks beside Zazar's knee, but she was more intent on the ball of entwined strings and the cords she had plucked from it.
Those were of different colors, muted in this limited light, but each carried twists of knots along its length. The sequence of those knots had meaning to one trained in their use. Once, she had heard Zazar refer to them as trimmings from the Loom of the Weavers.
As Ashen stumbled toward the fire-pit, yawning and rubbing her eyes, she could see Zazar's fingers passing the knotted strings the faster, discarding some to one side or laying one across a stone square. There were only a few so singled out.
"Come close. Sit." The Wysen-wyf jerked her head toward a space beside her. The various balls of the unsorted and untangled had diminished quickly and she was handling one of the few remaining now.
Then she was done. Quickly, she re-rolled the discarded cords and put them aside in a box carved from the lumpy root of a Bog willow. But the others—there were six of them—remained on the square.
Two—no, three held a glint of gold, one brighter than its companions. Another was of a blue that appeared to grow more brilliant as Ashen studied it. The fifth was the glowing green of new spring leaves, and the last, which lay apart from the others as if deliberately placed so, was as black as the surface of the killing pool, its knots touched with gray as if rimed by winter frost.
Zazar sat regarding the cords, acting as if she was no longer aware of the girl.
Still, she spoke, and with the emphasis that meant her mind was fully engaged with the message the knots would deliver.
"Queen," she said, indicating the brightest of the three gold cords. "King." She pointed to the dullest. "Prince."
That was the thinnest of them all, lacking many knots and none evidently intricate. From that rather sorry thread, she went to the green length. "Kin unknown."
Now she looked at Ashen again. "The times swing us along more swiftly. It is not your clan color, but you are green, yes. Untaught in much, yes." She had picked up the green cord and was running it along between thumb and forefinger. It was slender, hardly thicker than the one she had named Prince, and the knots on it were also few. But of those, several were doubled and redoubled.
As Zazar held each of those knots for an instant, Ashen thought she felt pressure at the nape of her neck, as if those strong old fingers had gripped her instead. A tingle of excitement, faint but definite, spread through her whole body.
"Let it be so." Zazar did not seem pleased, but rather that she had been out-argued by some power unseen. "Listen well, Ashen Deathdaughter. Every kin, people, and land knows birth, a rise to strength, a decline, and, at length—an ending. For some, it comes swiftly, and for others, it covers a tale of years upon years."
Ashen stirred slightly but did not speak.
"You have been born in the Bog, and have never ventured beyond it. Now comes the time when you must awaken, shed your long innocence, and learn something of the world. Most of those we call Outlanders are from the south, as the greater world is reckoned, but north to those walled as we are by the Bog. Outlanders come mainly from the Kingdom of Rendel, once a paramount and powerful state, though now rot eats at its heart. There the way of life is not that which you have known. However, it is one you must learn with all the caution and care you can bring to that task."
Zazar took the threads into her hands again, speaking more to them than to
Ashen.
"To the far north lies another land, one of mountains and valleys, knowing far more chill than we face in our worst winter time. Now a measure of their end has come to them, though they are still of vigor and strength, and they look afar for a new rooting. What sweeps upon them is not inner rot but outer darkness, from a source none of us have yet been given to understand, save that it means death, not only of the body, but of the spirit also. It massed in attack and has taken the mountainland. There is no indication of what it seeks, only that it comes forward. Whether the Bog will halt it for a while, we cannot tell."
Now she glanced keenly at Ashen.
"One thing, however, is certain; Rendel cannot stand. It is a country of great lords who look to their own gain, and among them there is an ever- hidden struggle to garner more power and bring down a neighbor one envies. The present
King is a weakling, a mask from behind whom acts one who has meddled to some purpose with strange learning. You must know this also—our world has seen many changes, not only in people, but in reaches of land and sea as well. At times, great Kingdoms have been wiped away by the fury of the very earth in which they are rooted. There are remains of earlier knowledge to be found, and this Queen
Ysa has discovered such, conveniently bringing to herself more power and the ability to control others."
Ashen was bubbling with questions by now, but Zazar si
lenced her with a look.
"There is a single heir to the throne, a Prince. He is of tainted blood from both sides of his kin-lines. He can cause harm such as leads only to utter chaos. Meanwhile, the Queen plots to ensure that her line will remain the ruling one. As she controls the father, so does she mean to make a tool of the son.
Now"—Zazar's dark eyes seemed somehow to grow larger as she stared at the girl—
"we, too, must see to our defenses." She fell silent and Ashen dared a question.
"Does this Queen then threaten the Bog?"
To her surprise, Zazar smiled slowly. "Have you not listened, girl? The Bog is only a small part of the whole of this land. Yet now, once again, it will have a role to play. Yesterday you found a place older than the records, where those before us walked a country far less a plaything for the streams than what we know today." She tapped her finger against the square of stone across which lay the knotted cords.
