The Wanderer

by Wilder, Cherry;

  The big man obeyed, wild-eyed. He led them toward the rough gateway, and Gael saw that it was in bad repair—the Wild Boar relied on magic, not on wood or stone. She questioned Breckan quietly as they rode along.

  “How many in your liege Huarikson’s troop?”

  “Thirty or so, with the servants and helpers,” he said.

  He was not surly or unwilling. Gael could not tell if he had simply changed sides once cornered; she could not trust him.

  “Where are the O’Quoins, man and wife?” she asked.

  Badger Breckan spat convincingly into the grass.

  “Oh you can have them, Captain!” he said. “I’ll give you the pair of them!”

  He turned his head and stared back, between the riders, to where the boy in green remained slumped upon his horse in the cold landscape.

  “Those damned half-blood Shee have set up shop in the second lodge to the west of the Roundhouse—has a painted sign for Yorath and the men of Cloudhill who were assigned to the place years past.”

  “For the Bloody Banquet!” said Gael.

  They had been using the common speech, but now she spoke in Chyrian, and sure enough Breckan did not understand until she quickly translated. She said to Bress and Shim Rhodd:

  “First, when we’re in, you two must place a triple binding around the stone hut marked for Yorath and the men of Cloudhill. You know where it stands?”

  “Aye, Captain!” they chorused grimly.

  Before they came too close to the gates, Gael said to Badger Breckan:

  “Get down and leave your horse out here to graze.”

  He was unwilling, and she moved her lance, saying:

  “What, are you afraid it will bolt over the high ground?”

  When the big man had dismounted, Bress led away the big, docile charger to a green place. Breckan gave a brief hail, and the broken gates were opened. They rode slowly into Silverlode. The place was rather tidier than Gael had expected; the brushwood and weeds had been kept down. It had the same aura of emptiness and loss. The lofty stone Roundhouse, the Commissariat roundhouse, and the scattering of smaller buildings all cast long black shadows. Women were drawing water at a new well; there were five, six, armed guards lounging on the framework that did duty for a battlement on the south eastern wall.

  Gael and her troop of Witch-Hounds rode steadily into the middle of the yard, to a water trough with a hitching rail, directly before the Roundhouse steps. One of the massive doors of the Roundhouse was open, and a man in a dark brown tunic, fancily cut, ran out on to the steps. He darted his hands, fingers extended, at the troop; then came a fearful crackling sound as his magic bounced off their shields. Gwil Cluny shouted “O’Quoin!” at the same moment as Gael raised high her lance and pronounced the Grand Bewitchment, the Stillstand, the stone hour.

  She saw it work, serially, from west to east, clamping down on a party of men carrying harness, then on the women at the well, then the men on the scaffolding: one was caught off balance and fell to the ground. Only the witch, O’Quoin, was not held rigid, for he had a personal shield, but he was kept to his place on the steps. And Gael believed that he looked toward the hut for the men of Cloudhill.

  “Dismount!” she ordered Bress and Shim. “Encircle that hut yonder! Triple strength. He cannot stop you.”

  “Master Cluny,” she said. “Speak to O’Quoin, as we planned.”

  Gwil Cluny got down and tethered his pony. Before he could walk to the steps, men came crowding out of two of the smaller houses, ten, fifteen, twenty, some wielding swords. As they came into the yard the Bewitchment seized them, the leaders sprawled and others fell over them, and they lay in grotesque stiffened heaps, as if turned to stone. Three women, together with two young boys, came out of the Commissariat roundhouse and stood bewitched like all the rest.

  “How is the count, Breckan?” she demanded. “We have at least thirty of the Young Boar’s folk in the yard … how many are still hidden?”

  The big man was sweating with fear and impatience.

  “How shall I know, Captain?” he panted. “A few … the lord is in his headquarters, in the Roundhouse. That damnable O’Quoin hag is entrapped by your boyos there … .” He pointed to the Cloudhill hut.

  “There is only one way you can shorten this exercise, Sergeant,” said Gael Maddoc. “Where are the prisoners?”

  Breckan growled and shuffled his boots in the dust.

  “Are they in the underground rooms? Can we go in through the kitchens?”

  He nodded sullenly.

  Gwil Cluny had pressed on to the steps of the Roundhouse and Gael observed that his shield could just be seen, as a faint golden radiance, surrounding his body. He spoke to the witch, O’Quoin, and straightaway, while they parleyed, Gael went on to the next, the most difficult part of the action.

  “Well, kedran,” she said, “are you ready? Do you see the way?”

  “Aye, Captain,” chorused Bruhl and From.

  “Captain Maddoc,” said Wennle, “I pray you—let me go with the ensigns! I must find my lord and lady …”

  “Of course,” said Gael, “but have a care of yourself, Master Wennle!”

  The two ensigns and the old steward broke off and rode at a slow walk to the Commissariat roundhouse; Shim Rhodd, on his way back from encircling the Yorath hut, followed Gael’s hand signs and went to attend to their horses. Bress came back to her at the horse trough and said in Chyrian:

  “Other side of the Yorath hut is something we could use—I mean for the lord and his lady!”

  “What’s that?”

  “A covered cart—almost a carriage. Not so fine as that one we just saw on the road, but I warrant the Boar himself rides in it with his fancy women. It has two good greys in the shafts, and they are bewitched, poor creatures.”

  “We’ll have it then,” said Gael, returning to the common speech. “Can you loose the greys as you were shown, bro?”

  “Aye, Captain!” he said, teasing.

  “For the Goddess’s sake, don’t make a botch!” she said. “Bring the thing over here—but not between us and the Roundhouse.”

  She felt exposed and endangered, despite all her magical protection, standing there with only a few horses and a prisoner. Suddenly there was a burst of movement, the pattern changed. As Bress came from behind the O’Quoins’ house, driving the grey horses harnessed to the covered cart, there was a loud clattering sound from the roof of this simple Roundhouse. It took Gael a moment to realize that it was made by bricks and tiles showering from a hole in the roof.

  The air was filled with a loud screaming cry, uncanny, half-human. Something moving very fast, so that it could be seen only as a blur of light, shot straight up into the blue morning sky above Silverlode.

  Gael Maddoc reacted with a mad swiftness that she associated with magic itself: she directed her charged lance at the flying object and uttered a different holding spell. She saw in her mind, like a diagram or a battle plan, the domed shape of the holding spell that was presently operating in Silverlode. Luran had pointed out that there was a space above the town where the spell did not work—where a witch, for instance, or its familiar, might fly safely. But now the witch, Catrin O’Quoin, making a bid to escape, was caught and held thirty feet above the ground. She could be clearly seen as a small, dark woman, in a green gown, clutching a dark cloth bundle. She was in an awkward posture, her skirts clinging to her limbs; she was held upright as if she would dance upon the air.

  Her husband, Fyn O’Quoin, who had been talking angrily with Gwil Cluny, let out another cry. He ran down from the steps of the Roundhouse, waving his hands, and cried out to Gael Maddoc.

  “Captain! Captain! Hold steady!”

  “Keep back, Master O’Quoin,” said Gael. “I have a steady hand …”

  “Where d’you get these tricks!” he cried. “Hold steady!”

  His sharp, dark, Chyrian face was twisted with anxiety; he mistrusted her grasp of magic as well as her hold on the lance. />
  “You have been told the truth!” said Gael. “We come in the service of the Eilif lords of the Shee, your kinsfolk, and they have granted us these powers!”

  She shifted her lance a little, knowing it was a cruel thing to do; the figure of Catrin O’Quoin moved above them, very slightly, in the empty air. Fyn O’Quoin fell on his knees and held out his hands to Gael on her tall horse.

  “I implore you!” he said. “For the love of the Goddess, let me lower her to the ground.”

  Gael had no stomach for it, but she knew she must use this advantage. She did not look at him but at the woman above them.

  “Summon your witch-quoyle to your hand, Master O’Quoin!” she said fiercely. “Abort its power and give it to Gwil Cluny, our scout. Not until then will I lower your wife to the ground!”

  O’Quoin came wearily up off his knees, his eyes fixed upon the figure of Catrin, his wife. He cursed under his breath, rubbed his hands together, and made a stylish gesture that Gael recognized as that of a person truly adept in magic. He raised his left arm above his head and moved the fingers, uttering a few soft words in old Chyrian.

  The dark cloth bundle that Catrin O’Quoin was clutching came away from her arms with a shower of golden sparks that hung in the air like falling stars. It dipped down, floating, to Fyn O’Quoin’s hand; he held it at arm’s length and said loudly in Chyrian:

  “Sleep now, little heart, true helper!”

  The bundle, as long as his own forearm, moved once, then was still. He flung back the cloth wrapping and revealed a piece of curved metal, like a digging tool, a length of rope dyed a brilliant red, intricately twisted around the handle. Gwil Cluny took it in his hands and said:

  “It is safe, Captain!”

  “Captain, have mercy—let her down!” cried O’Quoin again.

  Badger Breckan swore under his breath and murmured to Gael:

  “Don’t trust them! Don’t let them come together!”

  Gael Maddoc rode out a little on the restless Ebony, holding her lance very steady, trained upon the witch in the air.

  “Master O’Quoin,” she said. “Your time in Silverlode is over. Fly up to your wife, take her in your arms, and bring her away yonder, to the northwest: go down from the high ground by Hackestell Fortress. Remember I can strike at you while you’re within the range of my magic lance …”

  “Thanks!” panted Fyn O’Quoin. “Thanks, Captain. We are in your debt.”

  He was concentrated on his wife—she could hardly doubt his sincerity. He clapped his hands to his sides and went whirling up as his wife Catrin had done; he did exactly as he was told. Gael released the binding spell from the lance, and Catrin O’Quoin went limp in her husband’s arms. He carried her in a darting movement, nothing like the flight of a bird, and went over the old wall to the west of Silverlode. Gael rode out, tense and ready for tricks, but there were none. There was a clear view out of the town, and she saw the pair dip down over the edge of the high ground, hovering above one of the roads to Hackestell.

  “Captain!”

  Ensign From cried out behind her. She had come from the Commissariat roundhouse, from the cellars underground; she supported Lady Malm, and Shim Rhodd had left the tethered horses and come to help her. Gael was shocked by the sight of the prisoner: Lady Malm could barely speak, she was half-conscious, dirty, in disarray, all her fine clothes stripped away except for a few petticoats. Quite to Gael’s surprise, none of this seemed to be the lady’s greatest care. “My fleece,” she whispered piteously. “Where is my fleece?”

  Gael looked at Ensign From, who shrugged, and showed the Captain the richly worked piece she held under her arm, a once-white fleece that had suffered along with its mistress in the cell below Silverlode. The edges were marked by a curious branding, in a decorated Eildon script with which Gael was not familiar. “We found the lady sheltered with it,” From said to Gael, in quiet aside. “Of course we did not leave it behind.”

  Gael now recognized this object as the fleece she had seen the first night in her dream. She was not sure what to make of the lady’s fierce attachment, but now was not a time for questions.

  “Put the poor lady in the carriage,” she said. “Stay with her, Ensign From.”

  “I have the medicines and comforts Mistress Cluny made up,” said From. “Captain, there’ll be trouble bringing out the old lord …”

  There was a confused roar from the Commissariat roundhouse; Ensign Bruhl came out first into the morning sunlight, then Wennle, heaving along the struggling figure of the old lord, his master. He spoke to Lord Malm, doing his best to soothe him; he was assisted by a stranger, a heavily built young man, another prisoner, who held Lord Malm by his left arm. Shim Rhodd went to help. Malm struggled fiercely, but he was weak and had some kind of leg wound. At last Gael dismounted, tied up Ebony in the charmed circle with Sergeant Breckan.

  “Sergeant,” she said, “this will soon be at an end. You have done what you were asked. Pray you hold out a little longer.”

  “Why have you done all this?” he demanded. “For that mad old man who treated his kedran escort like dirt?”

  “I am his kedran escort!” she answered. “I know my duty. And I know my duty to Coombe Village, which I promised to serve well. I look to see more than the lord and lady, Sergeant Breckan!”

  “What else?” he asked.

  “Their horses, from Coombe, together with the Malms’ saddlebags. Along with some hundred royals in gold that the lord carried.”

  He hung his head. Gael strode over and confronted Lord Malm, who was a fearful sight, purple in the face, his mouth flecked with foam, his eyes red and rolling.

  “Lord Malm!” she said loudly. “You are rescued! Peace! Pray you be still!”

  The old man checked in his struggling and stared at her, panting loudly. Then it seemed that he knew her and this set him off again.

  “Med—Meddoc!” he growled. “Damned Chyrian pack … . Stink of the midden! Dare to lay hands on us! Awake! To arms! The Hunters to the rescue!”

  Gael raised a hand and bound him into stillness where he stood.

  “He should be ashamed, this lord!” burst out Ensign From. “You have woven this whole web to rescue him and his lady, Captain.”

  “Oh, he has had too much to bear!” cried Wennle. “My dear lord—see, you are free! I swear he will come to his right wits …”

  “Let us have him in the carriage,” said Gael. “You too, Master Wennle.”

  She looked at the young man, the other prisoner, who had assisted with Lord Malm. He was pale faced and his hair was black; he wore a grey tunic and over it a scholar’s gown. He was looking at her strangely—with awe? with fear or admiration?—watching the blue spark that lighted her lance’s tip.

  “Are there other prisoners below ground?” she asked.

  “No, Captain,” he said. “I was being held for ransom alone, till these noble folk were brought in.”

  He bowed his head to her and said:

  “My name is Tomas Giraud, of Lort. I am a scribe.”

  “You will come out with us,” she said. “The old lord must be placed in the carriage …”

  This difficult action was performed without magical assistance; Lady Malm cried out her lord’s given name, “Mortrice!” in a faint high voice. Gael said to her troop, cryptically:

  “Draw together for a long lifting!”

  The ensigns took up positions on either side of the carriage. Bress drew his horse alongside the two greys in the shafts and soothed them; Shim Rhodd rode close behind the carriage, leading Wennle’s horse. Under the cover, the old steward and the scribe, Tomas Giraud, sat with the poor Malms, propped on pillows.

  Gwil Cluny prepared to mount his pony and join the group, but Gael held up a hand to him.

  “Captain!” called Ensign Bruhl. “I pray you, come out with us all!”

  “Gwil and I will come a little later …” said Gael Maddoc.

  She prepared the spell carefully and deliberately—
walked right round the carriage and its attendant riders, uttering to herself the marking formula. Then she walked to the Roundhouse, went up three steps, and stood there side by side with Gwil, looking around at Silverlode. She saw all the men and women who followed the Wild Boar stock-still in strange attitudes or fallen in heaps, and she felt a deep distaste for her work. She called loudly:

  “Be ready!”

  Then she raised her lance and uttered the words for a long lifting. There was an immediate, loud crackling in the air overhead, and a cloud of sparkling blue mist settled over the place she had marked. It hung there for as much as thirty pulse beats; Gael thought of Luran’s words about bringing the Halfway House down in the midst of the city of Krail. The mist cleared slowly; the carriage, together with eight human beings and seven horses, had gone, hopefully to the chosen field behind the Halfway House.

  “I must do this!” she said to Gwil. “The Eilif lords have brought us so far and will not desert us now.”

  “Yours to command, Captain,” said Gwil wryly.

  “Then fetch Badger Breckan to me, from our charmed circle just there,” she said. “Put our shield upon him. Loose the circle entirely—our two horses should stand here by the steps. We will leave quickly.”

  Gwil Cluny did as he was told; Gael had always a thread of anxiety for her horse, Ebony, but he was taking it all quietly. Badger Breckan stood at the foot of the steps with the shocked look of those who had seen powerful magic done.

  “What more d’ye want, Captain?” he panted. “I’ll do my best with the horses and the gold.”

  “I will go in and parley with your master,” she said. “I must speak to Corvin Huarikson.”

  “No!” he said. “No, I’ll not betray …”

  “I will speak with him!” said Gael Maddoc. “I’ve harmed no one here today, have I, Breckan? Trust me! Lead us in!”

  He stared into her eyes, then made his decision and walked past her, up the steps and into the Roundhouse. She and Gwil followed him closely into the old high-domed hall; a young servant boy who had been watching behind the door ran off. It was dark after the sunlit yard: the tiled roof, with its heavy beams, had been mended a little over the years. There was an arrangement of shutters letting in the yellowish daylight. Gael strode to the very midst of the round hall, taking in the shadowed gallery, the door to the old kitchens. This was the scene of the Bloody Banquet of Silverlode. A long table stood before her, with a red cloth, and she remembered bunches of evergreen set out five summers past by the Memorial League—the women of the Rift.