The wizard had been surprisingly tolerant of his housekeeper’s opposition. Carin—eavesdropping from the unlit passageway between the minor wing of Verek’s house and Myra’s kitchen—had been ready to step up and get it over with, if the woman seemed in danger of provoking her master’s temper. But Verek had replied patiently:
“Answer me this, Myra. Would you have the girl ride from here to the western mountains with that great ruddy mane drawing the eye of every man she meets? Will you trust in the gentlemanly ways of each rogue whose path crosses hers?
“I tell you distinctly, mistress: I look for rougher manners in our fellow wayfarers. Indeed, I can scarcely vouch for the honorable conduct of both riders in whose company she’ll travel. The resentments that bear potent sway with Lanse have stripped him—as you well know, Myra—of any regard for the civilities owed a lass of his own station.
“Tell me, then,” Verek had continued. “Would you send the girl on this journey with that remarkable mane inviting unwelcome glances? Or will you do as I ask, and shear it to a length befitting a gillie who is newly come to his lord’s service? So scrawny is the girl from neck to heel, she’ll pass handily for a boy—once shorn of that hair. Though it’s a fair-faced lad she’ll make, I grant you. But do you not think, Myra, that I may more readily defend her against those lechers who might fancy a pretty ‘footboy,’ than against all the rakes who would desire such a gloriously tressed servant girl?”
Lurking unseen in the passageway, Carin had felt the blood rush to her face. From Myra’s silence, she gathered that the gray-haired matron was also disconcerted. The housekeeper, however, soon found her tongue.
“Well, now, m’lord,” Myra had begun, in a tone that said many minutes would pass before silence again filled her kitchen. “As you’ve asked me what I think, I’ll tell you. Surely it is I who must say it. I think it exceedingly unwise, sir, for a man to leave his snug, warm home long after the last straggling geese have fled this northern country—with a cold wind behind to help the feathered twits on their way. ’Tis too late in the season by far, my lord, to be riding forth on any foolish errand to the western mountains. If you don’t die in a blizzard or break your bones falling from some icy precipice, then it’ll be Providence alone, and not your own good sense, that saves you.
“And ’tis the greater folly still, good sir—if you’ll suffer me to say it,” Myra went on, emboldened by her indignation, “to drag along a girl who’s had more than she needs of such adventures—the very waif who came to our doorstep not a month past, in rags and tatters, bravely fending for herself in the middle of nowhere but half starved. After all the time and trouble I’ve been put to, to get meat on that spare frame of hers, she’s so thin even now that a stiff wind could blow her away. ’Tis a wonder that coddled mare of hers hasn’t mistook the stripling for a handful of wheat-straw and gobbled her up, so spindly is she.
“’Twas in my mind, master,” Myra had continued in disappointed tones, “to have a great feast at Mydrismas, such as hasn’t been seen in this house since your noble grandsire feasted his cohorts and their households for leagues around. ’Twas in my mind to sit the girl down to the Mydrismas table and not let her rise ere she had put some curves on that stick-thin figure.
“And if I may speak my mind”—
At this, Verek had snorted, as if expressing his doubt that the woman could address him more frankly.
—“I’ll say this, too: For all your talk of that great mane of hers drawing men’s eyes, I think you see none but a child when you look with your own eyes at that girl’s frame. What else could you see in her, my lord? She’s hardly more than skin and bones … she might be elves’ kin—all wide eyes and lanky limbs.
“But I wonder, master,” Myra had rambled on, as was her wont, almost losing Carin as she jumped from thought to thought. “Do you see how much like yourself is that lonely, clever girl? Do you see how she buries herself in your grand library, filling her head with all the learning to be found in those musty old books?
“Do you see what a pair you are, my lord, you and that well-spoken child, who earns her place in this household as the only soul to speak keenly to you of books and puzzles and mysteries? You’ve no sense in your heads, the one or the other of you, when it comes to those dusty old books.
“And of a certainty, my lord,” Myra had concluded, finally making her point, “you’ve no sense inside that skull of yours, sir—though whipped I may be for saying it—to be thinking of taking that girl on a journey halfway across Ladrehdin in the dead of winter. For I’ll tell you a thing that maybe you’ve given no thought to, in all your scheming for this enterprise. Though I call her a child and you may think her one, the girl is no infant. She’s a young woman, with a woman’s body and womanhood’s ways.
“Will you be stopping in some fleapit inn or filthy hole every month of your journey while the girl is in the dark of her moon? Or will you make the lass ride on, sick and bleeding and hurting, through the cold and the snow? ’Tis not to be thought of, my lord!
“Abandon this reckless venture, I beg you. Let winter find you safe at home, with Lanse tending his horses and the girl her books. But if you must go on this foolish journey, then leave the girl behind in my care. ’Tis neither wise nor proper that she be on the road for months with two men—neither of them a husband nor a blood relation to her.”
Though hidden in the passageway, Carin had wanted to disappear through a crack. She could only guess at Verek’s reaction. In the silence that followed the housekeeper’s speech, Carin had imagined the wizard sipping his ale, his unquiet eyes glimmering while he considered his reply. Then he had sighed, but in a manner that expressed no change of heart.
“It is with a thought for the wisdom—and the proprieties—of traveling in the company of a young, unwed woman that I command you as I do,” Verek had said, a flash of anger evident in his clipped tones. “Obey me, then. Cut her hair. Dress her in boy’s garments. Speak to me no more of the trials of womanhood. Do you think me blind, or so long bereft of my own lady’s companionship that I cannot distinguish between an unfledged youngster and a lass of marriageable age and condition?”
When Myra—a woman who was seldom speechless—made no reply, the wizard seemed to repent of his brusqueness. Addressing one matter that she had raised, he added in a voice less edgy:
“There are herbs, good woman, to stem the flow of the female humors in the dark of her moon. It will do the maid no harm, only ease her journeying, to drink each day a draught that I’ll prepare. Spare me, therefore, further argument, and see to your duties. There are provisions to be secured and clothing to be sewn. You’ve work enough, mistress, that you needn’t add to your burden by harrying yourself into such a state as you’ve fallen today.”
The sudden scraping of a seat pushed back and the ring of hard-soled boots across the kitchen floor had signaled the end of that singular exchange between Verek and his housekeeper. Carin had fled down the passageway and upstairs to her bedroom, herself and her spying barely avoiding detection.
Alone in her room, she’d dropped onto the bed to consider her limited options. Should she try again to get away from Verek, to spare herself any part of a journey that promised as much danger as misery? For weeks already, she’d sought a way out of his manor and found none. Her one, earlier attempt at escape had ended disastrously, landing her in a “root cellar” that was worse than any dungeon …
Recalling that episode now, as Carin followed her jailer through the somber forest, she tightened her cloak around her. Yet she couldn’t suppress a shudder at the memory of that pit of black horror, utterly lightless and cold enough to chatter the teeth in a moldering skull.
And so I chose to go along on this madman’s errand, she chided herself, thinking I could easily escape when I’d gotten clear of Verek’s lands.
Her plan had seemed simple. Stay with the wizard and his groom until they reached a western country that was as unfamiliar to her captors as to herself. Then
steal Emrys and flee, using the forest and the dark, narrow lanes of its scattered settlements to evade Verek’s pursuit.
But then the wizard had snapped his cursed band of iron around Carin’s ankle, binding her to him. In her mind’s eye she had begun to see the magic as an infinitely strong thread, thin as a hair, tying her to the wizard. She could neither slip the knot nor break the thread, but must stay always tethered to her captor.
Carin stared at Verek’s back. Clop, clomp came the hoofbeats of the mare she rode, striking the ground as steadily as a timepiece, marking the passing of these minutes among all the dismal hours she’d endured on this journey. And yet she had left Verek’s lands in Ruain barely two weeks ago. The village he had named as their goal for tonight, Deroucey, was only a minor objective on a quest that threatened to last through the winter and—if she lived to see it—into the spring.
Peeling her gaze off Verek, Carin pushed her hood back and glanced around. The late-afternoon light was dimming into the gray of evening. High overhead, thin clouds hid the first few stars. Twilight spread gloom through the trees.
The wind ran cold fingers through Carin’s cropped hair. As befitted her station as Lord Verek’s lowly “footboy,” she now had the shortest mane of the party. Myra—the woman’s face dark with disapproval—had done her master’s bidding and bobbed Carin’s auburn hair. Once halfway down her back, now it lay in a face-framing pumpkin-shell cut that barely brushed her earlobes. In contrast, Lanse’s long brown curls tumbled over his coat collar. The wizard’s straight, black hair fell to his shoulders, swept back from his forehead and held off his face by a silver fillet.
But did the narrow band on Verek’s brow serve more than a utilitarian purpose? Carin had never seen him wear it to keep his hair out of his eyes when he rode to inspect his land holdings, or when he engaged Lanse in swordplay. Might the coronet announce to strangers his rank? Or was it the ensorcelled mate to the iron band that encircled Carin’s ankle? Except for the metals of which the two were made, her shackle resembled Verek’s headband.
Or was it, Carin wondered, a bespelled shield that kept the wizard from working magic when ordinary methods would serve him better? The possibility had come to her about a week’s travel past the borders of Ruain, when she realized that Verek had worked no wizardry—nothing overt, anyway—since leaving his own lands. Was he deliberately hiding his abilities? Or was he forgoing the use of them now so he’d have the fullest measure of his powers later on?
The prospect gave Carin pause. If Verek expected to have his mastery tested, that said much about the dangers they might face before this quest ended.
Her roving thoughts lit upon a flash that illuminated the forest track ahead. She tensed, prepared to spring from the saddle and into cover at Verek’s first warning. But the wizard didn’t slow.
Carin, following close behind, stood in her stirrups to peer past her captor. Ahead she made out a flaring torch that jutted from a timber-built stockade. As they rounded a slight bend in the path, a second torch came into view. The fitful light of the pair played over a gateway sealed by iron-strapped doors.
Deroucey, she realized, and heard Verek mutter the name like an echo of her thought. “At last,” the wizard added, and Carin detected a note of relief in his voice.
He rode up to the gate. “The Lord of Ruain wishes to hire rooms for the night,” he announced, loudly, to the unseen guard. “Will you open to an honest traveler who pays in coin?”
“Gladly, my lord,” came the muffled reply. One door screeched inward, opening just enough to admit Verek and his servants and horses. The silver that Verek dropped into the gatekeeper’s palm elicited a heartfelt “Drisha bless you, sire!”
Inside the walled town, the streets were nearly deserted. Evidently the people of Deroucey sought the comforts of their evening hearths as soon as night fell. Guided by one of the few natives who were still abroad, Verek led his party to the finest accommodation in town—an inn called “The Grand.” It was more meek than magnificent, but entirely satisfactory to Carin. After two weeks of sleeping blanket-wrapped on the ground and washing sparingly, she was eager for a bed and an all-over bath.
They dismounted at the inn. Verek stepped inside to arrange their lodging, leaving Carin alone with Lanse.
Watching him from the corner of her eye as she struggled, with gloved fingers, to untie her satchel from the packhorse, she saw Lanse jerk his saddle-roll off his gelding. He swung it, hard, into the packhorse’s face. The gray, shying from the blow, plowed into Carin and knocked her to the ground.
Wordlessly—she didn’t even mutter an oath—Carin got up and dusted off. She stroked the startled beast, quieting it until it would let her claim her baggage. She didn’t so much as look Lanse’s way again, but mentally she tallied another mark against him.
This new offense joined the dead branch with thorns as long as Carin’s middle finger that had found its way into her bed-blankets and her flesh. It aggravated the hurt from the pewter mug with its handle turned so long to the fire that she’d burned her fingers. It deepened the rancor between them, as had the scorpion that fell out of her boot two mornings ago. Carin had, prudently, shaken her boots out before pulling them on, thus avoiding the sting of that particular trap.
How many rocks must Lanse have turned over to find the vermin stirring this late in the year? That he would go to such lengths to harass her didn’t bode well for the remainder of their journey together, especially considering that Lanse had punched her once—only once, but hard enough to break Carin’s cheekbone.
Remedying that injury had required a benign bit of spell-weaving from Verek—spellcraft the wizard hadn’t been certain would work on the “peculiar foundling” from elsewhere who had washed up on the shores of Ladrehdin. It was only Verek’s threat of dire punishments, should Lanse lift a hand to her again, that had saved her, Carin knew, from suffering worse from him than pranks.
Tonight, apparently satisfied with his mischief, Lanse didn’t trouble her further. By the time Verek rejoined them, the boy had the bags off his gelding and the wizard’s hunter. Carin stripped her personal gear from the mare and unburdened the now-calm packhorse. The gray showed by the droop of its head the fatigue that all four horses must feel after the day’s forced march.
“The stable is there.” Verek laid his hand on Lanse’s shoulder and pointed to an unlit structure down the lane. “The innkeeper instructs you to give a shout at the gate, and you’ll raise two sturdy lads to help you tend these beasts.
“Here,” Verek added, and reached into his leather belt-purse for two pieces of silver. “Give the lads these. Coin buys the best care. When you’ve seen to the horses, claim your supper from the innkeep and be shown to our lodgings. Our host offers nothing but cold meat and day-old bread, but perhaps you’ll find it to your liking after a fortnight of your own cooking.”
In the dim light from the open door of “The Grand,” Carin eyed the wizard. Was it possible? Had her dour, unsmiling captor made a joke at his groom’s expense? Drisha knew—as did Verek and herself—how poor a cook the boy was. Carin never complained, however, for fear of getting the job. Her one hotheaded attempt to stab Verek with a kitchen knife had apparently disqualified her for cook’s duty, and she didn’t want to be reconsidered for the post. Let Lanse wield the pots, pans, and butcher knives.
If Verek’s words were meant in jest, they provoked nothing from his groom but a short nod. The boy led the horses off down the lane, leaving Carin and the wizard to haul their baggage up steep stairs to their rooms.
The innkeeper was there before them, spreading their evening meal on a trestle table in the front chamber. He had already kindled a fire on the hearth; the leaping blaze would soon have the chill off the room. The round, bald hosteler faced them wide-eyed and wrung his hands nervously.
“’Tis an honor to have you with us, m’lord,” the man rumbled in deep, hearty tones. That he spoke bravely to cover his uneasiness was obvious. Carin had used the tactic
too many times in her own dealings with the wizard not to recognize it in another.
“I fear, good sir,” the innkeeper went on, “that you’ll be thinking this a house unfit for gentry, seeing as how you’ve caught us with nary a lad on hand to carry up your packs, nor a lass to wait on you at table. May I hope, m’lord, that you’ll forgive such poor service to a noble guest, seeing as it’s Mydrismas Eve that you’ve come to us? Not a lad or lass will work tonight, if they’ve any living soul in Deroucey to call kin. But on the morrow, sir, all me lads and lasses shall be at your service, ready to fetch and carry as you may command them.”
Mydrismas Eve? Carin gave no outward sign of surprise. She stood quietly beside the hall door, her eyes lowered as was proper for a gillie in his master’s presence. But her thoughts raced back over the past two weeks, searching for the moment when she’d so thoroughly lost track of time as to forget the major festival of the season.
No wonder the streets were deserted tonight, she realized. All who honored Drisha had been early to temple with their prayers and tithes, and then had got home before sundown to feast with their families. Mydrismas Eve was a night, as the innkeeper said, for young and old to gather with kin to celebrate and retell “the stories,” the traditional legends and fables of Ladrehdin. None but the friendless, the destitute, and the desperate were abroad on Mydrismas Eve.
What must this fat man think, Carin wondered, glancing sidelong at their host, to be serving cold meat and common ale to the Lord of Ruain on Mydrismas Eve? If Verek hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself, he couldn’t have done worse than to enter the town on this night, of all nights. His unorthodox behavior would be the talk of Deroucey tomorrow.
As Verek thanked the innkeeper, however, Carin detected nothing in his manner to suggest the wizard regretted the timing of his party’s arrival.
The Wysard (Waterspell 2) Page 3
