Now they were some dozen together; all cried out at Airar that fire would bring the foemen down on him, and he could but agree, but a search of pouches brought forth three bottles of aquaviva, with which they comforted themselves. As they talked, there was a hoof-splash in the mire, a voice called, "Who lives?"
They readied spears. "The ring," said Airar, looking up toward a tall armed shape on horseback against the sky.
"The iron ring!" replied the other in a voice Airar thought he knew, and the stranger pushed up a morion, dropping hands to side and leaning down for them to look at as he approached. It was as visioned; the face belonged to Meliboe the enchanter.
14 A Night in Mariola
"IT IS NO LESS than I warned you," said the man of magic as Airar held bridle and he dismounted while the others nudged and murmured. "Your luck runs thin beside the three-fingered man. What think you of your prospects now?"
"None so unhappy. The Carrhoene captains—"
"Are broken; flying toward Hestinga's mountains. Alcides is slain and Evides the Marshal Bordvin's prisoner."
"Bordvin Wildfang?" gaped one of the fishers.
"Aye, Bordvin. Thought you that tomtit, the Red Baron, would deal with such a war? These are high matters; the marshal has no less than three tercias in presence, and all your armies are overthrown, your Duke of Salmonessa will be duke of his own castle by another dawn, ha, ha."
For answer Sewald whipped at him with a hand-spear but it glanced harmless from the magician's good plate and he laughed.
"Free-fisher, no patience. Noble Lord Airar" (there was an accent here at once of mock and menace) "pray your servitors not toss their pricklets on me, lest I loose against them something worse than sea-demons."
"Noble Lord Airar," mocked Sewald in return, "just tell this frog-spawn sneak un has the count of seven to quit our company or try whether we cannot dig un from shell like a lobster, nah."
"There are certainly one or two words to be said if he wishes to prove himself friend," said Airar, thinking sourly on the horror he had found aboard the fisher-ships.
"Tsa, young man, I thought you clearer-minded. If I could find you alone amid these boccages, could I not do it with a deese of terciary soldiers at my back, or a wing of gentours? Yet here am I, solus."
"Might hap un just got separated from a's people," growled Svarlog from the back, but for that the magician had not even reply. "Look now," he said, "I'll give you conviction of friendly purpose. What's your plan and whither bound?"
"If we have one, why give it to a lord of the Vulkings?" answered Airar, fingering weapons, but then reflecting how little could come of cross-purposes in such situation: "Yet since it tells nothing, none. We did but scout toward the causeway to have a full tale of what passes on which to reach decision."
"Most wise, O puissant young leader, but—"
"There be friendly folk among these marshes," cut in someone, "that might help us reach the sea."
Meliboe turned on him. "And whither then, foolish man? Will you swim to Gentebbi?"
But Airar, his thought jerking back to Gython and anxiety: "Rather we're for Salmonessa if way can be found. There the center of hope still rests."
"And somewhat additional, nenni, young man?" Airar felt a sting at the enchanter's sharpness. "But it's not to be thought on. The town's become a trap for all against the Mountain. Will you drink again of the Duke's luck, that has laid you so low today?"
"Where then? You close all roads to us."
"Not I, but Marshal Bordvin. If you'll but hear me, there is even a route through this snarl. Yet first, have some of your people gather the dry heads from these tall reeds and strike a fire. This ironmongery is chill to a man of my years."
"The Vulkings—"
"Bah, have you so poor an opinion of my philosophic powers, young master? I'll make myself answerable they never trace you. If you doubt, set a man with a dag at my back and I'm the first to fall if it goes awry."
Airar gazed a moment at his unflinching eye and gave the word; the light flared up redly on intent and gloomy faces, Tholkeil of Mariola shivering with cold and wet, and for that matter, Svarlog. There was a search for food and under-voice talk of it as they made places, with the tall reeds looming behind, and the colloquy went on. But it was Airar's friend and not himself that opened the next chapter:
"Sir, I am Visto of Vagai, that would have been your pupil there, and am sworn to obey Master Airar like the rest here, so his decision will stand for all; but would just have a question if permitted. What's your interest in us poor wolf's heads and fugitives, under the ban of the Empire?"
"Hah, and the beldam prevented the 'prenticeship. I call you to mind. Is she dead yet?" the enchanter asked.
The fire fizzed and crackled, running in the heavy reedtops, still half-damp with snow. There was a silence for a moment as the magician gazed across it, and to Airar it seemed (though he could not tell surely in the moving light) that Meliboe's eyes held the same distant expression as on the night when he had spoke of the Duke's luck and things to come. "Your question is not truly put," he said slowly. "You would know why I, loving ease and with a court at call, fall in with you who must wander. Put, it thus—that I'm a faithful son of the Empire, no Vulking by blood, and would not see this Count swollen so great he could pull down the House of Argimenes."
There was something like a snicker among the shadows, and though Visto lowered his eyes, he made a little sound like clearing his throat.
"You will not credit it so?" said Meliboe. "Then say I have a private grief against the Count, who would forbid the study and practice of the art necromantic, save as it directly serves his court. The worst the gods can do for a man of mind is to make him dependent on such a dolt. . . . Or say that I weary of meeting none but easy problems, as a glutton wearies of eel-pies. All would be true; and maybe more besides. Man's reasons are mixed and mine own not less than the rest. Take it only that I'm here to save your lives, not needing gratitude, and let's fall to more profitable discussion."
Said Airar: "Would it be profitable to inquire whether we shall then set our course for this great Baron Deidei, who was late for the rendezvous, but still must have great force?"
"You will lose only your lives and your war if you do. Deidei's the cleverest scamp in the dukedom, therefore like to be the head of it before many seasons turn; bitterly hating Duke Roger for the whoredom of his daughter Malina; sold out to Marshal Bordvin and the Bishops, who mean to put him on the chair of Salm in their interest and so end the bastard line, that Church has never loved."
"Another road closed. You lead us with a nose-ring. But whither?"
"Stiff neck makes stumbling foot. But no need now conceal; your case is so bad that in all the lands north of the great sea there is only one power at hostility unalterable with these Vulkings, and that will be Mikalegon of the burg of Os Erigu."
"Oh, oh," around the fire and a hard laugh and again and someone let slip "Mad!" But or ever the matter could be carried beyond, a man on the outer circle leaped up, lifting one hand while with the other pointing. More than half hidden through the screen of reed they saw a torch of lanthorn flicker briefly and die; it might be moving toward them. There was leaping to feet and Sewald saying low and fierce, "Now, sir magician—" but Meliboe threw up a hand to ward distraction and Airar saw that he was moving the fingers of the other hand as though feet in a complex dance on the soft ground beside him, meanwhile with a long rimeless whistled tune that rose and fell.
"Hush, be quiet all," he broke off to say. "Not a word or sound if you wish your skulls to hold brains instead of mead for a Vulking banquet."
Airar motioned them to obedience, which warning was in truth not altogether needed. It was a magic he had never seen before, and there was a tramp of feet that seemed approaching, but beyond the walls of reed it halted and there was whisper, whispering which broke in a downright shout: "Nay! That I will not. Be damned to the deserion; the place is not canny. A moment since we saw that
campment plain, now it is gone and see how those glittering foxfires run, and whence comes that evil whistling moan? Come."
They heard the steps turn a pace or two, then a cry swelled—"Nay" and "Nay"—and run. The wizard's mouth was twisted into his beard in an expression too savage to be called smile. All breathed deep; there was a sense of crisis overcome, and little question to taking Meliboe's advice. But most now were willing to leave the question wholly to Airar, being much fatigued with the long march, battle, and escape, whereas there was little meat and they remembered that sleep will do for dinner where naught else is. They began to compose themselves; Airar set guards in pairs, and the magician like the rest unlaced his armory for sleep.
For Airar himself rest was distant long, his mind running round and round like a rat in a cage till toward dawning, when he fell on a doze, fitful and marred by dreams of the clash of arms, with spears breaking and worlds shaking. It seemed to him in this dream that he should but could not turn the course of his thought on Gython—for even in dream was ware he dreamed—and was somehow disgraced by not doing so. At last with a mighty effort he brought the name to the front of his mind, but with no image save that incongruous of a white unicorn that sniffed among green leaves; then woke with set face, trying to remember how his love had last looked.
Dawn was sliding in under cold blue clouds, a wind driving the red-grey reed-tops, and someone had caught a pair of ducks that were being prepared for a meal. Meliboe the enchanter stood leaning his back against his saddle, a cloak wrapped round him and the wind playing in his beard. His head was sunk on his chest; the horse sniffed and nibbled unhappily at the dry rank marsh-grass of their little island of solid ground.
"A new day and new cheer, master," called Visto, not ungaily, who was building up a fire; somewhere he had found sticks. Meliboe lifted his head, gave a glance from another world, and—as though this were a signal for which he waited—squatted and began to draw a pentagram on the ground, presently sifting onto it through his fingers a quantity of certain particolored powders he drew from a pouch. It was a divination—to what purpose Airar could not guess, for there was no smoke. The men of Gentebbi huddled for warmth around the fire, glancing over their shoulders and talking in low tones as the appetizing odor of roasting birds floated along the gust. Magic and meal were done together; as they took their places to try a hunter's fare, Airar asked the magician which way it was in his mind to travel.
"I have looked in the seeds. There is no danger for you this day but toward Salmonessa; therefore, as you please if you follow your own thinking—but if mine, southwesterly and away from this causeway toward the shoreward march of Mariola, thence back north and westerly toward the footpath passages through the Merillan Heights, where they fling off from the Hogsback, and so on into Hestinga."
He traced out a simple plan with the end of a duck's thighbone as he spoke. . . Always avoiding Marskhaun, which will be under deadly siege, with the gentours scouring the country." Airar might have caught from the tail of his glance a certain stir and fall of faces among the men, but none said a word as Meliboe looked on his drawing melancholically. "Oh, weary—what it costs a man to have unease in his vitals." He swung to Visto: "Sir 'prentice unprenticed, find a stupid wench, marry her, settle down and raise cabbages, thus guarding your happiness in what you do. You can be happy or heroic, not both; but no use saying so to this young-blood leader—he's of the kind must stir up wars and kingdoms; but if such found fewer to follow them, we'd all live long."
Visto laughed. "Would not be better to seek a she of parts to tell me tales spring evenings while the cabbages push up soil?"
"Nay, nay. Only stupid women seek content; the others are all for renown and never happy till their robes be trimmed with kings' beards, being worse than stirring men, since they make all men stir. . . . And she, she; there's a strange fate for you."
Sewald growled that the magician had small experience with dames to say so. And they took up their journey soon after, moving on much the same order as the night before, with Meliboe riding among the main group; he had taken the pennon from his lancehead. A few flakes of snow slanted along the air and it was better to be walking than standing still.
They had gone maybe an hour in this fashion when Airar's quick sight caught on a hillock that rose above the weeds to marsh-bush leftward something that moved contrary to the wind. This could never be foemen; he cried halt and sent four by a circuit round a patch of reed to see whether it be friends, or some animal that would make a dinner. Some were found to grumble about the delay, but all were soon glad of it, for it brought back no less than Erb the Lank, with a group that brought their numbers to a score and two. His ugly face wrinkled when he saw Airar; took the young man's hand in both his own and tears came out on his cheek.
"My shame that all ran," said he. "Free-fishers have never done so before, and now you shall make me bow-bearer or other menial behind you."
"Nay," said Airar, "you no more then the rest. We ran all. They were in truth too many, and their over-captains with a closer thought on plan than that bastard three-fingered Duke, hiding among his shaveheads. As for bowmanry, I have thought on the matter—" (which was not true, it came to him only on the tongue with the need of saying something)"—to this end, that a man is not born to it like a stallion to studding, but must learn through long years; so that from now your free-fishers that remain in this venture shall be spearmen while I lead. Though I cannot but think it the worser weapon."
All now praised him for the best and most generous of captains, saying they would follow him to the end of the world and back. Erb touched the hand of Meliboe, it cannot be said with any great pleasure on either side, they eyeing each other like uncertain hounds. Erb said Airar had done well to set a picquet before the band, but that if it were three or four men strong there was no need of second cover, and the arrangement was thus altered.
The snow had begun to come thicker now, all the landscape driving with it; fortunately, the previous day's thawing had left the marsh so damp the flakes would not catch, so they had but to follow the path of growing white, but direction now become a problem and the air was bitter cold. Airar walked not far from the enchanter, well coddled in his cloak and unhappy, while the free-fishers treated it as a jest, speaking of ice about the mainhaul, or shouting for an imaginary lad to bring hot spiced wine.
He was not done marvelling how readily all had followed on this unknown adventure and said as much to Erb, who replied that it was no marvel whatsoever but old Rudr's good choice, who had found for the fifty to Salmonessa men without ties to keep them at home— "saving myself, that must just come as captain, though I have a sister in house, much in need of man's helping"— whereat Airar thought of the harridan Ervila who had come to him for ratsbane, but dared not laugh, for Erb was blowing his nose with thumb and finger.
Now they were on harder ground, with bush, as marshedge thorn, low juniper, and an occasional yew, frosting fast with falling snow. Airar called in the picquet and a consultation was held, with some for camping against the growing blast, but Erb said gentour parties would be across the whole countryside when the weather cleared, seeking wreck and plunder from the battle. Press on, therefore, in a tighter knot; but as the hour drew maybe past a noon that none could see, it was clear that press on could be carried little farther and Svarlog had the shivers.
They stumbled on a cow-track. Airar said take it, though it led as near as he could judge southward from their true direction, meandering crazily along rising ground. His thought bore fruit; the path took them to a byre and beyond that down the hill a little to a cot around which snow was already drifting onto the old snow that had lain. For a time there was no answer to their knocking, but when Erb said in a loud tone there must be none within and they had best burst the door, it sprang open. A carle stout and wideshouldered stood there, not very high for a Dalecarle, hooknosed and sullen of countenance, and the more so a,t the sight of so many armed men. He let them in with an ill
grace, naming himself Britgalt. As Airar brushed past through the door he sunk his voice low enough just to be heard and chanted, "Geme, plange, moesto mori—" but there was no response. The place had but one room, which they well filled; there were two sons, as sour-mouthed as their father, but no women visible.
Airar bustled Svarlog into one inglenook and got water boiling to give him a hot draught. Meliboe took the other unbidden, dropping his armor in a pile on the floor, and sat muttering to himself, with his cloak half-wrapped round his head, dabbing a finger in the ashes, while Erb and Airar were persuading Britgalt to sell a pig for a handful of silver ainar and sent Sewald and Visto out with one of the sons so they would have to eat. Not much was said.
The pork was already in pot and a savory odor coming out to mingle with the steaming smell of wet clothing when Visto looked round to ask where one of the sons was, that had been with them to the pig-yard.
"Un came in with you, when you brought the ham," said Sewald, but Visto:
"Nay, I left un; turned back."
"Where then? Could un be lost in storm?" Visto got upright, but there was almost a smile round Britgalt's lips before Meliboe lifted his head in the dark corner and said:
"He has gone to warn the gentours of your presence."
Their grimly host reached to his belt, but tall Erb got an arm round his throttle and held knifehand with hand, there was a yell and tumult, the other son snatching for a boarspear till thrown down by numbers crash among certain objects in the corner. The wizard stilled it with uplifted hand and another word:
Well of the Unicorn Page 12
