“Releasing too soon,” Ingelbert muttered to himself, seeing the problem.
Looking back down at his book, Ingelbert plucked his notes from between the pages so he could record the translation of boar, then remembered he had nothing to write with. Trusting to his memory he placed his notes over the proper page and went to close the book when his eyes fell upon one of his earliest translations.
Owl.
He looked over the word for a moment, then glanced back out to where the falconers stood.
“Huukayat,” Ingelbert said with a small smile as he looked at the owl on the man's wrist.
The massive wings unfolded and the hunter gave a shout as the bird took off. It settled into a low glide, silently speeding over the grass. It took Ingelbert a moment to realize it was heading directly for him. He barely gained his feet, spilling the great tome to ground. The owl swooped in under the canopy of the oak and Ingelbert's view was dominated by its unfurled wings, orange eyes and large talons. He threw up his arm to defend himself, feeling the air against his flesh, a momentary buffet of wings against his shoulders and then nothing but a gentle weight pushing down on his arm.
Opening his eyes carefully, Ingelbert found the owl perched on his injured arm, its powerful claws gripping the plaster cast. It looked down at him with a look of indifference, preened briefly under its wing then swung its head around to look at its master and his servants approaching the copse at a run. Ingelbert waited nervously, adjusting his stance to better accommodate the weight of the owl, which was lighter than he expected given its intimidating size. Two of the servants reached the copse first, slowing down when they saw Ingelbert. Seeing the owl was not lost, their faces relaxed.
“It's here, my lord!” one of them called to the hunter, who was several strides behind. He stamped into the copse, the look of annoyance on his fleshy face only deepening when his eyes fell on Ingelbert.
“Give him over,” the hunter demanded, holding out his arm.
Not certain what to do, Ingelbert extended the owl towards the man and made a slight tossing motion to no effect. The hunter waved impatiently at his servants and one of them stepped up to Ingelbert, taking the owl from him with a practiced hand.
“It is, uh, it is beautiful,” Ingelbert said, not addressing anyone in particular. “A rodzlagen eagle-owl, if I am, um, not mistaken. Native to Middangeard.”
“Damn useless is what it is,” the hunter griped. He was at least a head shorter than Ingelbert and younger, though his chestnut colored hair was already thinning above his sweating forehead.
The other two hunters now approached the copse on horseback. They had their servants in tow, falcons on their wrists and smiles on their faces. They were of similar coloring to the hunter on foot, though both older and comelier. One had a well-groomed beard, the other was clean shaven and wore a circlet of gold upon his brow.
“Did your owl find a new master, Edric?” the bearded horsemen asked with a hearty laugh.
The one named Edric did not answer though he continued to glower at Ingelbert. The man wearing the circlet guided his horse skillfully into the trees, reining up before Ingelbert and nodding down at him.
“Our thanks for retrieving the bird,” he said.
“No, no trouble,” Ingelbert replied, then motioned to his cast. “I think he was attracted to the, um, to the white.”
“What do you know of it, churl?” Edric nearly spat at him.
“Peace cousin,” the rider said. “You should be more gracious.”
The bearded rider laughed at that. “Edric, gracious? As likely as that owl catching a rabbit!”
“Damn you, Raedwald!” Edric cried shrilly, but his cursing only fueled the other's laughter.
Ingelbert's legs were beginning to feel shaky, so he bent to retrieve his walking stick.
“Forgive my kin,” the rider before him said. “My brother Raedwald lives to make sport of our cousin. As men, they are still boys. My name is Wuffa, how may I address you?”
“Oh, um, Ingel- Ingelbert Crane, my lord.”
“Well, Ingelbert Crane. Our thanks again.”
The hunters and their servants began to leave the copse. As Edric waited on his horse to be brought, Ingelbert approached him.
“My, my lord,” he ventured.
The man turned and regarded him with a sneer.
“I, um, I think the owl would strike true,” Ingelbert went on undeterred, “if you would wait, that is, wait longer to release him.”
Wuffa and Raedwald had turned in their saddles, looks of interest on their faces. Edric gave him a withering look.
“What?”
“Well, um, owls do not see well up close. They track more with hearing than, ahh, than sight when prey is near. I think, I think if you wait for the rabbit to be further distant, give your owl more time to see it, he will not miss.”
Edric regarded Ingelbert through squinted eyes for a moment, then glanced passed him and motioned for his servant to bring the owl over. Ingelbert stepped back as the hunter took the bird on his wrist, regarding it with interest.
“Tell me,” the man said, not taking his eyes off the owl. “What good is a bird of prey who cannot see what is right in front of it?”
With that, Edric snatched a dagger from his belt and punched the blade into the owl's torso. The bird gave a piteous cry, its wings flapping spasmodically. It went grotesquely limp, falling off Edric's wrist to land in the dirt where it twitched, bleeding. Ingelbert stood stunned and sickened, unable to move. He looked into Edric's small eyes and the man smiled at him, then mounted his horse.
“Curse you for a black bastard, Edric,” Raedwald said with disgust and spurred his horse out of the copse.
Ingelbert leaned heavily on his walking stick to keep from falling down next to the dying bird, watching as Edric, still smiling, rode away. Ingelbert bent and gathered the owl up awkwardly in his arms. Its eyes were closed, its beak opening to take tiny breaths. He could feel its heartbeat slowing beneath his hands. Wuffa remained in the copse, staring down from his horse grimly.
“My lord,” Ingelbert pleaded. “If, if you would help me get him back to, to Gipeswic. I have a friend, a, a Fae healer. He could save him.”
“I am afraid no horse will be swift enough, nor Fae magic strong enough to save the poor creature now. Look.”
Ingelbert looked down. The owl was still, it breathed no more.
He stood for a long time clutching the bird, only vaguely aware of the departure of Wuffa and his men. Was there no end to the evil deeds he would witness? Was there no end to his inability to stop them? Damn Edric!
And damn Flyn. And Deglan. Damn Parlan Sloane as well. This is why Ingelbert chose to hide. This is why he yearned for distance from the world. If he could do nothing to prevent the iniquity of men, of skin-changers, of rapers, then he could be sure to take himself far away from their reach. He refused to feel shame for who he was, let others judge as they will.
Ingelbert laid the owl beneath the oak, knowing the bugs would soon be upon it, but he lacked the strength and the tools to dig a grave.
“Huukayat,” he said in parting, placing a hand on the gorgeous feathers.
He gathered his book and stuffed it back into the satchel. Shouldering the bag, he turned and began the long walk back to the town of his unwanted birth.
TEN
“A bear on a boat,” Flyn said, shaking his head and laughing as he tossed Pali a chunk of uncooked goat. “It still remains a marvel.”
From the tiller, Milosh smiled at him, the gentle river wind playing through the man's dark, curly hair. That hair contained a little more silver and that smile a bit more gold, but otherwise the years had done little to change him. Milosh's clear, deep voice eased effortlessly into song, his smile broadening.
“A bear on a boat,
saw a coburn tall and asked, Oh! What could it be?
Never have I seen a rooster of size
Enough to rival me!
Fear not n
or care, was said to the bear,
Your balls are bigger still!
What good be they, the bear did say,
When a cock goes where it will?”
Milosh held the final note for an impressive spell, his strong voice filling the river from bank to bank. When he finished, the man looked back to Flyn, his eyes dancing in his swarthy face.
“Not your best,” Flyn critiqued with good humor, tossing his own voice so that it reached the stern.
Milosh shrugged theatrically, leaning on the tiller as he piloted the boat with an expertise his casual posture could not conceal. “Age begins to dull my wits.”
Flyn heard Tsura issue a small breath of exasperation. He looked down at where she squatted amidships, tending both the small sail and the cooking pot. She did not believe her father's proclamations of decline any more than Flyn did. For that matter, Milosh did not believe them either. Most of what the man said was jest and he remained as canny as ever.
A grumble from Pali reminded Flyn he still had one piece of meat in his hand. He tossed it to the bear, then left him to eat at his usual spot at the bow. Pali was neither chained nor caged, a testament to the wondrous abilities of Milosh Ursari.
“I learned a few bawdy lays from a hobgoblin Jester,” Flyn called to Milosh as he made his way amidships. “I shall have to teach them to you.”
“I eagerly await this education!” Milosh answered.
Tsura shot Flyn a reproachful look, but like her father's claims of dotage, there was little weight in her disapproval. Milosh may have changed little in a few years, but his daughter was fully transformed. Tsura had been a slip of a girl when Flyn last saw her, but now she was a woman grown. She possessed the bright eyes of her father and the olive-hued skin of the Tsigani people. Her thick, black tresses were unbound, falling down her back and past her slim waist. In the prime of her youth, Flyn did not doubt she would be a woman that human males found desirable. He wondered what Inkstain would think. Of course, the chronicler had no hope of winning her, for the Tsigani were notoriously clannish and Milosh would never relinquish his daughter to an outsider.
The Tsigani were not native to Sasana or anywhere in the Tin Isles. As Flyn understood it, their ancestors came from lands far to the southeast of Outborders. Some far-traveling Middangearders had raided their homelands in the distant past and taken several of their women as thralls. The fjordsmen were not shy about fathering children on their slaves and Tsigani blood reached Sasana when the raiders established footholds in places like Gipeswic, Rattlesdan and Norwyk. But the Tsigani do not forget and a group of their best warriors pursued their captive kin. It took many years, but they eventually freed all of those with Tsigani heritage from thralldom. Not wanting polluted blood to mix further with their people, the warriors and the former thralls remained in Sasana, slowly breeding the taint of Middangeard out over the generations. This was the legend as Milosh told it and Flyn suspected at least a small portion of it was actually true.
Whatever their roots, the Tsigani were now a tight-knit race of vagabonds. They wandered the rivers of Sasana in their ramshackle vessels, plying a myriad of traditional family trades amongst the human settlements. The work of their silversmiths was much prized and the gifts of their singers renowned. A gift which Milosh displayed with gusto.
“Bury my body in the loam, burn to the ground my hearth and home,
Unearth my riches and scatter my flocks, but leave my wine alone!”
Flyn knelt beside Tsura and took over management of the sail. She did not utter a word of thanks or breathe relief for the help. This was not a lack of gratitude, but merely the way the Tsigani mind worked. They were a wayward people, passing from one place to the next, each stop containing faces that came and went in cycle. To Tsura, Flyn's six year absence was the same as if he had been gone only a day. They settled into the old rhythms seamlessly, holding no resentment for a time apart, nor fawning over a reunion.
Upon leaving Gipeswic, Flyn had avoided the trade roads and stuck to walking along the riverbank, first following the Orr and then the Stour. He spotted the first Tsigani boat at dusk on the first day out and called to them.
“Please pass the word! The coburn called Flyn travels westward along these banks and seeks Milosh Ursari!”
After that it was simply a matter of time. Flyn continued his journey on foot, never losing sight of the water. Two days passed and then, early this very morning, a gaudy boat with a bear in the bow rounded a bend in the river. Flyn had given a merry shout, waving his arm at Milosh, Tsura and Pali. The Tsigani may not be overly sentimental, but Flyn did not hesitate to show his joy upon seeing them again.
After all, these were the people who taught him how to laugh.
They spent the afternoon sailing upriver and listening to Milosh sing, quickly lulling Flyn into a strange nostalgia. It all felt so comfortable, so familiar. Only Tsura's maturity revealed the passage of time. That and the steel spurs on Flyn's feet, the greatsword close to hand and the martial training that had become ingrained in his body.
“No husband?” Flyn asked Tsura after a time.
The girl did not blush or dip her chin demurely. She met his eyes squarely.
“Only a Rudari man has approached Father. He refused.”
Flyn nodded.
The Rudari were a tribe of miners and the only Tsigani that did not wander. They were prosperous, but viewed as somewhat inferior, only slightly better than an outsider. Tsura cocked her head ever so slightly towards the stern, listening more than turning. Milosh continued to sing at the tiller.
“He awaits the Atsinganoi,” Tsura said. She did not whisper, which would have been a sign of disrespect, but had ensured her father did not hear before speaking so plainly.
Flyn was not surprised. “He told you that?”
“Of course not,” Tsura said with a wry smile. “But I know his mind.”
“Is that what you want, Cricket?” Flyn asked, knowing she would not lie to him.
“Cricket,” she repeated with genuine affection. “You know, I do more now than just hop about the boat singing. Should I still call you—”
Flyn burst out laughing, cutting her off. “No!” he waved a pleading hand at her. “I beg you, do not.”
Tsura smiled at his embarrassment and for a moment the little girl who hopped around the boat returned.
“My wants do not matter,” she said, her smile fading. “We are the last Ursari in Sasana and Milosh has only me. If our art is to continue, marrying one of the witch-men is the only course. Father thinks not of me in this, nor does he think of himself. The Rudari would give him wealth for my hand, but he refuses. Even the Aurari, the goldsmiths, I think he would turn away. He thinks only of the Ursari. An Atsinganoi man holds the strongest chance of fathering a child with our gifts.”
Flyn knew Tsura was right. He also knew that such a match would condemn her to a life of hardship.
The Atsinganoi had Magic in their veins and were shunned by most humans. They often posed as traveling entertainers, fortune tellers or hedge healers, using their arcane talents to earn coin and kind, but many saw through the ruse. Even humans trusting of the Fae were intolerant of Magic-wielders in their own race. Flyn suspected such condemnation stemmed from the tyrannical legacy of the Goblin Kings, though not one of those mad warlocks had been of Tsigani stock. The men who became the Goblin Kings had learned their craft from the elves before betraying them, but no such tutelage was the root of Tsigani power. They brought it with them from their homeland and never spoke openly of its source to an outsider. Not all were born with gifts and when they manifested they were as varied as the tribes themselves. The Atsinganoi were the most potent, occupying a queer position in Tsigani culture as revered outcasts.
Flyn did not want that for Tsura, but he said nothing, for it would offend Milosh. Tsura too would not react well to judgmental words from him, such was the fidelity she held for father and tribe. It was not Flyn's place to gainsay. For all his camaraderie
with the Tsigani, he was and would forever be, an outsider.
Milosh steered the boat to the bank just before sunset and Flyn jumped into the shallows with the mooring rope in hand. Once the vessel was secured he unlatched the bow ramp so Pali could shuffle his furry bulk to shore. Flyn gave the massive bear a companionable slap on the rump as he passed. Tsura handed down the supplies needed for their nightly camp, then allowed Flyn to carry her to shore. She could have used Pali's ramp to avoid the water, but this was an old game.
“You used to be lighter,” Flyn teased.
“You used to be stronger,” she shot back, reaching beneath his beak to pull gently on his wattle as she had always done.
He let her down with calculated roughness, then went back to the boat for Coalspur and his armor. Milosh had gone ashore and was busy collecting firewood. Pali shambled around not far from the man, never leaving his side unless directed. Flyn watched the pair from the deck.
The Ursari relationship with their bears went beyond mere training. It was a mystical connection, one that was commonly overlooked by the peasants that Milosh and Pali entertained. Were it not, the Ursari would suffer the same mistrust as the Atsinganoi. Thankfully, a man singing and a bear dancing was a jovial spectacle that humans could accept, ignorant of what Flyn had seen many times.
Pali understood complex verbal commands, whether Milosh spoke in the tongue of the Tin Isles or the Tsigani ancestral language. It was as if the words were unnecessary and the bear was actually responding to Milosh's will directly. Yes, Pali would stand on his hind legs or sit when told to do so, but he would also refrain from eating if bidden, defying all instinct. Tonight, Milosh would have the bear patrol the borders of the camp to keep them safe while they slept. Pali would fight, kill and even die at Milosh's word, protecting the man and his daughter to his final breath. This was what the Ursari truly were and what Milosh sought to preserve.
That night they shared Tsura's savory fish stew by the fire, Pali receiving several of the catch to eat raw. They sang traditional Tsigani songs and Flyn taught Milosh the raunchy ballads passed to him by Muckle. The moon rose above the river and Pali went lumbering off into the shadows, huffing all the way. Flyn kept his weapons close to hand, but knew there would be no need for them. This was what he had experienced for countless nights in his life before the Roost. He would need no fire to keep warm and expected to sleep deeply as he only could in this company.
The Errantry of Bantam Flyn (The Autumn's Fall Saga) Page 15
