Earth Magic

by Alexei Panshin

  She stood waiting opposite the door, Lothor’s little dog in her arms, a tirewoman at her elbow. The dog yapped to see Haldane.

  Marthe was shorter than he remembered. Today she wore no hat and bore less paint, but again she wore a dress that swallowed her. The sleeves were puffed and slit. Her dresses all seemed to have puffed sleeves that made her appear chubby and graceless. Gold chains hung down over her tight, jeweled bodice. Her hair was golden brown, her face was round, and her nose straight and high-bridged. She looked more the younger girl Morca had made her.

  Last night after Lothor had retired, it had been recounted how Morca’s party had halted well short of the dun at Lothor’s insistence so that he and the Princess Marthe might change from their traveling clothes. They wished to make a grand appearance at Morca’s dun. They wished to impress all the important people waiting there. The Gets had let them, laughing to themselves.

  “But why did they do it?” Haldane asked. If he changed his clothes once in a twelvenight he counted it often. More like once in a month. And every man who mattered in Morca’s dun was with the party. “Who was it for?”

  “Well, it must have been for you,” said Morca. “And Oliver. And the pigs. And the kitchen women.” Everyone laughed as he worked his way down the scale. “Were you impressed?”

  “No,” said Haldane. “As for the kitchen women, you must ask them.”

  Now looking the girl over, he still was not impressed. As he closed the door behind him, Marthe handed the dog to the tirewoman who retired a step or two, not so far that she couldn’t hear all that was said, but far enough to remove herself from the affairs of her betters, at least by implication. The dog was a trembling fragile thing and it strained futilely to be free. Grunt would have been ashamed to kill it.

  Still without a word—for what did he have to say to her?—Haldane walked around Marthe, taking advantage of the opportunity to see her from all sides. That, after all, was his reason for coming. As he passed her, the tirewoman backed even farther as though to give him all the room he could demand and an extra margin for her own peace of mind. She was a gray woman dressed in gray—grayness compounded.

  The young Princess of Chastain tried to turn to continue facing him, but her skirts were long and heavy and allowed no freedom of movement. To turn without tangling she must stoop and lift her skirts free. She refused to stoop and she would not tangle herself so she stood still, wrestling with fury, while he looked at her. It pleased him to make her angry because there was nothing else about her that could please him and he craved some satisfaction.

  “Have you stripped me with your eyes to your content, you barbarian pig?” she asked.

  It was a well-turned nastiness in the narrow Nestorian spoken by the highborn of Chastain, but in the distance between them the nuance was lost. Haldane heard only, “Have you seen your fill?” He did not recognize the word “barbarian.” It was not a word used by peasants, by Oliver, or by Leonidus the Poet King. And pigs smelled far sweeter to him than they did to her. He came very close to hearing a compliment. Only her tone saved her meaning.

  He surprised her by replying in his simple country Nestorian: “That I have. My fill and more.” She clearly hadn’t expected to be understood at all, but had been speaking bravely for the tirewoman to hear. He turned his back and walked to a chest by the door, which he took for a seat.

  “So you speak Nestorian,” she said.

  “That I may talk to serfs and my orders be understood,” he said. “But I will teach you Gettish.”

  “I will not learn it!”

  “Please yourself. You may sit in this room and face the wall until you die if that is what you like. You may mumble Nestorian to yourself as you do.”

  “I will entreat My Lady Libera to strike me dead and burn this place with fire after me.”

  Haldane’s hand went to his boar’s tooth. He was afraid, struck to the heart by her words as he would be by any mention of the Goddess. But he would show none of it. Was she kind of the Goddess? Was the witch’s hand in this? No matter. He forced a lifted chin, a laugh, and light words.

  “Tell me more of your Libera and what she will do.”

  But she shook her head a sudden and determined no as though she felt she had said too much. And then she just stared at him, her eyes great and round. There was a long and numbing silence.

  “Say on.”

  But she said nothing.

  “Say something.”

  At last she said, “Do you wish me to speak of the weather?”

  “If you like.”

  “I like it not at all. It has been nothing but clouds and cold and rain since we crossed the Nails.”

  Haldane said, “It is spring.” But she was speaking and not listening.

  “Or health? I am bruised and sore from traveling over fallen roads.” Marthe spoke intensely. “Would you like another subject?”

  “An you wish,” Haldane said.

  “I wanted to have a bath last night and they told me I must wait until we are betrothed. Is this a Gettish custom?”

  The tirewoman gasped. In a small voice she said, “Oh, my lady! You told your father you would not ask.”

  “I am asking. Must I stay travel-dirty until we are betrothed?”

  “No,” said Haldane. “You must stay travel-dirty until bath night. That is Cel’s Day coming, the day we are plighted.”

  She turned away and looked upward. In a desperate voice she said, “Oh, my life! Am I lost? Am I lost? Oh, if I were only home again where life is right. What must I forego next?”

  Haldane said, “You are much too nice. I’ll wager my father’s treasure that when you shit you have a servant standing ready to wipe you. You are a heavy price to pay for ambition. You should have stayed at home with your own in Chastain and never entered my life.”

  This stung the girl. Her head snapped round to face him. Her eyes widened in outrage. She opened her mouth to speak and no words came. She hit the air with her fists in frustration.

  Finally she managed to say in pain and anger, “I had no choice! Your butcher father has dragged me here to marry you against my will. If I could I would kill him, and you too.”

  Haldane shrugged. “Sheep are made to be shorn.”

  “A sheep?” the girl asked. She reached into the folds of her skirt and brought forth a knife. It was no plaything. It was narrower in the blade than Haldane would have liked, but yet it looked to be a mean stinger in the hands of one who could use it. If this girl was one.

  “You have brought me here,” she said. “You may marry me. But mind yourself. If you ever lay a hand on me, I shall kill you.”

  On the instant Haldane was off the great chest on which he sat and across the room. He lifted his left hand and struck the small Princess of Chastain a smart slap on the cheek. The dog in the tirewoman’s arms yapped sharply. The girl slowly touched her reddening cheek as though to confirm the blow.

  “There,” Haldane said. “Now I’ve laid a hand on you.”

  When Haldane returned to the hall, it was to find Morca’s audience concluded and the room emptying of men. He saw Oliver in his red robe, his spectacles on his nose, crossing the room slowly to accost Morca at the foot of his stair. Oliver looked to be suffering the hobbles for his successful display of magical craft before Lothor at dinner. Haldane had not expected to see him abroad today.

  Morca raised a palm to Oliver. It held him at bay. “Put out your pipe if you please to talk to me. I will not be smoked to death.”

  Smoking was a strange and filthy habit Oliver had brought with him out of the West. He said it was a necessary part of his magic. The yellow weed he smoked smelled worse than a singed chicken. It was another reason that men were wary of him. When Haldane had studied magic so briefly, the prospect of having to smoke had dismayed him. He had not studied so long that his dismay was tested.

  Oliver put his palm over the bowl. “I was in my cell studying my book for you and your benefit, instead of sleeping as I would,
when I heard that yet another baron has craved leave to depart. How much reason to study my book will you give me?”

  “It was only Aella of Long Barrow.”

  “Don’t say ‘only Aella.’ If you followed my advice you would let no one leave until the betrothal is made and Lothor returned to Chastain. There are too many who will not like this marriage.”

  “Aella will return for the betrothal. And today Soren Seed-Sower has joined me. He likes this marriage fine. And his brothers will follow him shortly into my hands, or so he swears.” Morca waved Oliver away. “Put your fears to rest, return to your cell and have your sleep. Nap until dinner.”

  “I do not speak of lackweights like Aella and Soren. Larger men than they care what you do. In times like these, with witches and kings all about us, outlaws in the forest and enemies a-plenty, it is folly to keep an open gate. ‘The man who walks barefoot does not plant thorns.’ ”

  “Have you been talking to Svein to be learning his tired saws?” Morca asked. He called up the stair. “Svein, have you and Oliver been hunched together?”

  “No, Morca,” said Svein from the dark at the top of the stair. “But for once, your foreign man is right. Soren is a Farthing. His great-grandfather was your uncle’s enemy. It is folly to let a man like that come and go.”

  “Enough of this,” Morca said. “I will have my way. Hey, Haldane, you are hurt. You are wounded. Did she bite you?”

  Haldane touched the bloody cut above his wrist, “She stung me only, but I have pulled her fang.”

  He reached behind him and brought out her knife. He flipped it in his hand and caught it by its well-worn black leather haft.

  Morca roared at that. “I told you she had spirit. Your first war wound. When you have her in your marriage bed you can trade her stroke for stroke and wound for wound.”

  But Haldane’s tongue knew his first war wound better. It touched the rough edge of his chipped tooth. His life was a knot, a chaos of wants and fears, but at the moment he was sure of one thing.

  “I have no wish to marry this fat little foreign girl, father,” Haldane said. “She does not know Garmund from Garulf.”

  “You have no wish,” said Morca. “My wish is your wish, and my wish is that you marry.”

  The moment of certainty passed. Morca stared at his son so dominatingly that the boy’s resolve broke and drained away.

  “Hear me all of you!” Morca shouted. “I want no more argument. It is settled now! The sealing will be a week tomorrow and that is the end of it.”

  Haldane said, “Bath night.” His submission.

  Morca said, “Is it? So it is. We’ll have our baths in that morning, before the betrothal.” His acceptance.

  “But first we have to speak with Furd Heavyhand. Make yourself ready, Haldane. We ride to find him come morning.”

  Chapter 7

  THE BANQUET IN CELEBRATION OF THE BETROTHAL of Princess Marthe, youngest and dearest to Lothor of Chastain of all his daughters, a child whose father’s fathers were Jehannes and the Three Kings of Nestria, but whose mother’s mothers were even older, to Lord Haldane, son and second to Black Morca, who would be a prince if the Gets had princes, was an early success. Men drank from full stoups and ate from full plates in the same great hall where they had bathed in the morning and witnessed the beginning of an epic in the afternoon. The banquet was the capstone of the day.

  An ox fit for best guests turned over one fire. On the other spit hung a wild boar returned by Ivor Fish-Eye’s hunters. The chief tumult of platter filling was over and men were well settled to their meat and drink.

  The dowry Morca had brought back from Chastain as his price for allowing his son to marry the Princess Marthe lay on display before the dais. All but the great doors, which had been fitted and hung while Morca pursued his business with Furd Heavyhand. Men admired the treasure for its bulk and Morca for his nerve. Morca Bride-Stealer. Ho, ho. At his work again.

  From his great chair at the table on the dais Morca could see his new doors. He ate beef and sopped his plate with bread. He wore pink ribands braided in his beard for the occasion.

  At the table with Morca were other great people. At Morca’s right hand, telling him stories to keep him amused, was Oliver, his strange and formidable maker of magic, visible evidence for all the room of Morca’s control of powerful forces. Oliver had shed his usual serviceable red woolen for magenta robes of cloth that dazzled the eye.

  At Morca’s left hand was Lothor of Chastain, cloaked in blue brocade. He pecked at his food and did not laugh at Oliver’s stories, even though they were told in Nestorian. He was without his dog tonight, but between bites he fondled the scepter that lay beside his plate, symbol of the slender power of Chastain, as he always did in the presence of the Gets.

  Between Lothor and Haldane sat Princess Marthe, the only woman who ate in all the room. Morca had allowed her to eat this meal at the table to give Lothor reason to leave lighthearted. Marthe wore pale blue and white, the colors of ice. Like her father, she was silent except when addressed.

  Haldane sat in Morca’s second chair, brought downstairs from Morca’s quarters. He cut Marthe’s pork for her with a new narrow knife he had. His chair, much smaller than Morca’s, framed him neatly. Morca had given it to him after the betrothal. Like so much else that had happened in this last week, it was evidence of his father’s favor.

  Barons and carls and knights of Chastain spilled ale on the rushes and stuffed their guts with meat and savory kitchen dishes. A serving woman carried a trencher new-brought from the kitchen to Svein All-White All-Wrong on his stair and let the oldster breach the pottage. At the next table, Rolf the carl sat with his again friend Ludbert, who had gambled for his fork and won. The fork had a new owner now and these two ate with their knives, spoons, and fingers like regular Gets.

  Elsewhere, together sat Soren Seed-Sower and Furd Heavyhand, both Morca’s men now. They ate bite for bite and drank drink for drink and haggled bride price. Companions at another table were Ivor Fish-Eye, eating of the boar his party had taken while they hunted the wurox but found only its stone turds, and Aella of Long Barrow. Aella had returned to Morca’s dun as he had promised. If he had been too late for bath and betrothal, pell-melling up just before the gates were to be closed at nightfall, he had yet been in time for the banquet.

  And at the end of the table below Haldane sat Hemming, his army, keeping him constant company with his eye. When Haldane—son, Get, story prince, new baron, new washed, new clothed, new betrothed, well filled and happy—set forth for the outhouse half through the banquet to relieve himself of too much ale and excitement, Hemming Paleface rose and followed at his heels through Morca’s splendid new doors and into the night.

  Haldane stepped off the porch and into the yard. He breathed the comfort of the night. The air was cool after the close warmth of the hall, and smelled of the living spring. The wind whistled light nonsense through the stockade walls, her merry syrinx. It was a gay time to be alive. The crescent moon had bedded early and the stars were lightly veiled. It was quiet here. The voices within were muffled by the new doors.

  “Well, where are we to?” asked Hemming Paleface at Haldane’s elbow.

  Haldane clapped him on the shoulder. Fiercely, he said, “We are off to the outhouse. Are you game to try, though they be as thick as sand fleas all about us?”

  “Who?” asked simple Hemming.

  “Why, the enemy. The enemy.” Haldane put his hand to his sword. “Will you strike down any man who prevents us from our goal?”

  Hemming laughed and nodded. “My head is giddy from craning and from drinking black ale, but you are my captain, Haldane. I will have their lives for you. Oh, it is good to be a Get tonight!”

  Haldane and his army bared their swords and rushed through the yard striking singing giant blows that could not be parried. They laughed and Hemming fell and they slew the night many times before Haldane had Hemming on his feet again and they won through to the outhouse and s
afety. They collapsed against the walls and hungered for breath. For a Get who was half a Nestorian, Hemming was a good Get.

  “My sides ache so much I am near to puking,” said Haldane. “I can’t take this. I must stop laughing. Oh, I am dizzy.”

  “I owe you my life,” said Hemming. “If not for you, I would have been slain where I fell.”

  Haldane waved it away. “It was nothing. You may have chance someday to serve me like.”

  The guard in the tower nearby at the corner of the stockade called to find what the hurly was about. They were laughing so loud that his call was lost and he must needs call again.

  “Enough,” said Haldane to Hemming. “We must be sober.” He raised his voice in answer. “It is nothing. We are funning. We fight bogies.”

  “How goes the feast?”

  “Drunk. Can we send you ale or meat?”

  “Na. No need. I have eaten and I expect my relief at the first moment.”

  The two young Gets passed inside the outhouse to seek their own relief. When they were pissed dry, their heads were clearer. As they shook themselves and straightened their clothes, Haldane said, “Come early summer when Lothor is back in Dunbar, Morca and I mean to go raping in Chastain. There is a place in the party for you, Hemming.”

  Hemming had no chance to reply. As they left the outhouse, there were two men on the path. They were knights of Chastain, Lothor’s men, quietly drunk for such a gay banquet. One waved a wineskin, the other a sword. They lacked only dice to be ready to duel any man they met on his own terms.

  He with the wineskin said, “Hold!” and waved his hand before his companion’s face. “Put your sword by. It is Lord Haldane and his man. They wait you inside to toast your betrothal, young lord.”

  “Did you expect to meet a goblin in the night?” asked Haldane in Nestorian. Though all of Lothor’s knights seemed as much alike to him in their sameness as any handful of chicken feed, he thought he knew these two. They were the patient adventurers who had gone hunting each day with Ivor Fish-Eye.