“Enough!”
Haldane grinned and threw the rush away. “Mayhap it will be our enemies who are rained upon,” he said. “Let us wish them wetness and shelter for ourselves.”
His mind was working clearly now, or so he was given to think. In truth, he was only in part recovered, like a muddied stream half-settled.
His strength was greater today than yesterday. His head ached less. If there were confused places in his memory even yet, he could remember clearly enough what had happened to him yesterday and last night. He did not know the truth yet of what might be trusted and believed. There was much in his mind to be made sense of. But since the wurox had tried to steal him away, there was one thing of which he was sure. He wanted most to fly free of the Goddess and her tool, the ugly red man with whom he was forced to keep company.
If he was not as blithe as he pretended to be, he was happier in his anticipation of escape than he had been at any other time in this prisoning dream. And he waited like an archer with a hard target, seeking the right moment of wind and light to pull and loose his arrow. He the archer, he the bow, he the arrow, all in one.
His gnarly shadow lagged and wilted. Noll was even slower today than he had been yesterday. Haldane did not know whether it was one more trick to throw him off guard, or whether Noll the Tool truly failed. He listened to him choke and cough and he made the pace harder, hoping that he might outwalk the old man and leave him far behind.
But when he was thirty paces ahead, Noll called for him to slow. “Not so fast. Not so fast. I am not able to keep up with you.”
Did he play with Haldane?
“I thought you wished for me not to drag?” Haldane said in all false innocence. “I but do my best to please you.”
“Aye, Haldane. Giles. I must remember to call you that always until we are safe. And you, to call me Noll.”
“Be content,” Haldane said. He tapped his head. “You are Noll in my mind even now. I have you.”
“Good. Remember that when it matters. When we set out this morning, I did not know how tired I was. My bones are water. I cannot march like a soldier.”
“What kind of soldier marches?” asked Haldane. “Any soldier worth the name rides.”
Like the best of bad servants, he teased and joked and laughed to prove his constancy. But soon enough again, he was twenty paces ahead of Noll and the old man was wilting under the weight of the pack.
“Stop,” he said. “I must catch my breath.”
So they halted and when they rose again, Noll gave the pack over. But Haldane still led the way, setting the pace with his lighter feet. The pack was nothing to him.
This was not yet the time for escape. The hills were too close and steep and set about with tangles of trees and brush. Haldane did not mean to run away into wilderness and lose himself.
The second time they rested was no better. Haldane contented himself to set too brisk a march, not quite enough to earn complaint, but stiff enough to weary this wander-eyed untrustable man, and make him unwary. When they came upon the proper place, Haldane would know it and call the halt himself.
And in time they came upon a jumble of high gray rocks, the Pellardy Road passing by on one side, a trail angling past on the other to find its own way south into the hills.
And the place said to Haldane, “Here I am. Make use of me.” For facing the road there was a natural shelter tucked under the rocks that many men had used for a camp since the world was new. They came upon it as the wind began to speckle them again with finger flicks of wetness. Wind and rain said to him, “Haldane, we are with you too.” Haldane heard them and rejoiced in spite of all fear and apprehension.
He did not ask Noll if he was ready to rest again. He did not trust himself to speak. He simply led the way off the road without a word, and the man who dogged his heels followed ten paces behind, saying, “Hey, it’s Leaning Rock. It is marked on my map. I remember it.”
Did Noll pretend? Did Noll suspect? What would he do when he found Haldane gone? Would he wait until Haldane was ready to flee and then reveal himself? Haldane’s stomach was clenched so tightly that he could hardly breathe.
Noll hurried his pace so that by the time Haldane was under the great rock loom where the ground was dry and out of wind and weather, the old man was beside him. And when Haldane had swung his bag down from his shoulder and seated himself, Noll was there before him, heaving great breaths like a blown horse.
Haldane felt like Wisolf the Cunning outside the tent of his enemy. This was the moment.
He forced a smile and said, “Here we are. Shelter for us, rain for the rest of the world. Just as we said.”
Sailor Noll said, “We must not rest here too long and spend our day on nothing. Only a minute. Unless the rain becomes too hard, Giles.”
But he sounded as though he wished the rain to grow hard. He leaned back with a sigh, putting his head on his bag, which he shifted and plumped until it was comfortable, moving one small hard lump until it ceased to annoy.
Haldane held his tongue in check while he counted ten. He would not be too swift with his words.
“We’ll wait and see if it does,” he said. “Now is the time for our enemies to suffer while we have good shelter over our heads.” Then he said with what he hoped was easiness, “Hey, I’ll tell you—let me step forth and test the wind. I need to piss anyway. I’ll judge the weather.”
He had not relieved his bladder all the morning long to make this excuse watertight when his moment came. He hardly dared to look at Noll. He rose from the ground without use of his hands. They were his danger. He wanted to touch his body and be sure that all that he had hung about him was still safely there. The things that mattered. Knife, horn, string. The things that made Haldane. His fingers itched for his boar’s tooth.
He shot one look at Noll because he could not help himself. Noll’s eyes seemed to be closed.
Haldane stepped outside into the light sprinkle that was spatting the earth. He put his hands to work. He held them out under the rain and cocked his head as though considering what they told him, then turned left out of sight around the rocks.
Before him lay the trail into the hills. Haldane wanted to run, but he did not immediately take to his heels. He needed to piss too badly.
He outdid the rain in wetting the base of a tree. All the while he kept an eye turned over his shoulder, looking for Noll. His heart fluttered and he looked of a sudden to the other side of the rocks expecting to see the old man standing over there, watching him, smiling at his simplicity in believing he could escape.
The wind and rain blew harder, shoving at him to be gone, but he could not go. He pushed at the piss until his penis hurt. He stood there for an agonizingly long time, his head switching from one side of the rocks to the other. But Noll did not show himself.
And then he was empty. Then he was free to run. He took the path, panting with relief, feeling surer and happier than he had at any time since he could bring himself to remember.
That was only two days. It seemed half his lifetime.
He ran, and every step said he was not Giles. He was Haldane. He was free. He was free. He was Haldane. He was himself. He was Haldane. Haldane, Haldane, Haldane.
Rain, wind, earth, rocks, trees, broken path. Haldane at one with them. Never Giles. He pushed Giles out of his mind.
He ran until the tumbled rock pile beside the Pellardy Road was far behind him. He pounded up the hillside trail until the breath was harsh in his throat and there were needles in his chest. He ran, half-afraid, half-convinced that he would turn a corner in the angling rock-fractured path and find Sailor Noll waiting for him, laughing at him, playing with him. That was Libera’s way in all of this—to toy with him like a Get carl loose among the playthings of the West.
At the best of times, Haldane was more used to ride than to run. First his calves began to bind and then his lungs failed him, and at last he fell to a walk. The slope of the path before him increased and he pushed at hi
s thighs with his hands, whoofing and panting. At last he caught at a rock and leaned against it for a moment, eyes closed, before pressing on.
From then on there was neither looking back nor fearing what was ahead. There was only walking. And as time passed and Haldane walked higher into the hills, his heart lightened. He began to believe that he was free. There was only himself, all alone in this rain-sodden world. This was the end of the evil spell that had gripped him for so long. They might do what they wished with him, play with him, lie to him, beat and harry him, but he was Haldane Hardhead, Haldane the Stubborn, and he knew his own power. He had proved it.
He laughed. Oh, they should have known better than to test their wiles on the son of Black Morca! They would know now.
It continued to rain. He wiped his forehead with his fingers. He was wet clear through his own clothes beneath the illusion and in some moments he could feel them binding and chafing. But he did not mind the rain. It had been a good friend to him this day.
Or so he told himself. But when he turned a corner in the trail and saw the first tumbled house of the village, his thoughts were immediately of shelter. He found he did mind the rain when there was promise of something better.
Then in the second moment he turned around and around, caught in a dance of wonder, marveling at what he saw about him. This distant village was dead, an empty silent unpeopled shell.
Nowhere within it did four walls stand together. Haldane saw fallen roofs. He saw stones thrown down. He saw charred beams glistening blackly in the rain. And he saw trees springing up again amongst the ruins, as though log walls, shattered and scattered, had in dying given birth to new strong children.
The destruction was complete. It was good Gettish work. Since Haldane had never raided into the West, it was the best he had ever seen.
He knew this place for what it was, though he had never seen one before, but only heard stories. It was a Wild Village.
Long, long ago, in Garulf’s time, the Gets had not ruled in the duchies of Nestor. They had been but guests, content to live in Nestor and accept its tribute, as they did even today in Pellardy in the south. And that had been well. Then, in the dark days after Stone Heath, when the Gets seemed weak and unable to help themselves, the nobles of Nestor had risen up and rebelled and refused to pay their lawful tribute. It was after that, when the dukes were dead or were fled into the West, that the Gets had learned to rule in Nestor. They had gathered all the people of the land close under their hands so that they might be better ruled. But there were some peasants who resisted and ran away into the hills and made new villages there. These were the Wild Villages.
All were in ruins now, burned, torn down, and broken long ago. Haldane thought it strange of fate that such a place should give him shelter now. He sat himself down on the dry side of a wall, comfortably out of the rain, which now, so late, was waning, to rest, think, and plan.
There was much in his mind to be put in place. There was much to be decided. But at least he was himself again, no longer Giles the Nestorian, no longer the plaything of the Goddess.
While he leaned his back against the logs and thought, he plucked a stalk of field grass and absently stripped it apart. When he had only a straw left, a bit longer than his finger, he picked up a tiny spider with it. He watched it closely as it ran back and forth from one end to the other as he tipped the straw. Back and forth. Back and forth. He smiled to see it scramble.
As he was absorbed in this pursuit, there came a sudden startling hard hand on Haldane’s shoulder, shaking him. He looked up to see the great looming bearded face of a wild man. The man was dressed in skins, his wet hair stood out in spikes, and he carried an axe in his hand. Haldane jumped to his feet in terror, dropping straw and spider.
He had never seen anyone like this before. It was a strange and frightening sight, a high-smelling bogey appeared out of the stories his nurses had told him when he was small. Was he so soon back in the hands of the spirits he thought he had escaped?
“What are you doing here, boy?” the apparition said in Nestorian. “Who are you?”
Haldane drew himself up and faced the bogey. He would not deny himself. Not again.
He said, “I am Haldane, the son of Black Morca!”
The apparition laughed.
Chapter 14
IN LATE AFTERNOON, THE CLOUDS THAT HAD BEEN dooming the day broke at last into great floes and sailed apart. That was while Oliver was following the hill path that led down into the glen where Duke Girard lay encamped. On his heels were the two boy outlaws who had come upon him in his great confusion after he awoke alone at Leaning Rock. These boys still wore clothes sewn by their mothers, though oversewn with patches of experience. The day continued cool in cloud and tree shadow, but in other moments bright. Grasses shivered then in sunlight and Oliver must narrow his eyes.
Oliver appeared the knobby sailor, Old Noll, he of the pendulous earlobes and the hairy nostrils, he of the red hair and the eye cocked on another world. At this moment, Oliver did not just wear Sailor Noll as a mask. He did his best to be Sailor Noll, to be no more than Sailor Noll, a man of no consequence. He had not done any of those simple things Oliver knew that would win him free of these outlaws minor. He did not wish to win free. He had welcomed their arrival.
Oliver sought the comfort of a fire, a fair portion, a place for his head, and time to regain his mind’s balance. In return he might offer the news of the day as it had come to a land-bound sailor walking the long road home from Eduna to Jedburke. Sailor Noll had said what was necessary to persuade these two damp lads to leave off their patrol and bring him and his news back to the warm and dry of camp. They had welcomed the persuasion.
This winter camp, tucked away in the range of hills that rose like a hedgerow between Morca and Arngrim, was the center of Duke Girard’s power. Girard was he who would have been ruler of Bary if the Gets had never come. He had been raised in exile in Palsance and was now returned to live at the edges of Gettish vision in his home hills of Bary, where he commanded fifty men among whom were more boys than just these two. They named themselves soldiers of the duke.
They had no more than reached the edge of camp, Sailor Noll and the two young soldiers, passed through by the watch, when they were set upon by a lank man whose many more patches were token of his greater authority. Camp was a well-used clearing, and there were more than fifty, men and women both, in camp today. They wore rude and simple clothes, and some even wore the skins of animals. So much Oliver could see at this distance.
The lank man was angry. He swore at the boys and said, “I will see you whipped. Will none of you follow orders? I put you wood lice on the Pellardy Road until dark! Is this darkness?”
“Be you calm, Rab,” the smaller boy said pertly. “We bring news for the duke.”
Rab was not calm, nor ready to be told to be. Oliver paid the noise no mind, waiting for it to cease. He looked away. A dozen women, as many old as young, played camp wife around the smoky fires. Men sat, worked, or played there in the glen in the glowing blue and orange of the cool late after-rain.
He was not much of an Oliver, that powerful man of magic, this fugitive Oliver. He was no man of whom Gets must be wary. He was a man of no consequence. He was content to be mere Sailor Noll and go where mere Sailor Noll would go. He ached to sit.
The world of his mind was as strange now as Haldane’s. From the time that he was a boy, Oliver had been acquainted with his failings. He was self-bound to narrow practice. He was indolent. He was timorous. He excused himself from much.
Nonetheless, he would not be stayed from walking at large in the world. He had countered his failings with his strengths. Agility was his chief strength, and he had forced his agility to carry him where diligence and courage and breadth alone would have failed him. Agility had made Oliver into Morca’s wizard and adviser, the one man of magic amongst the Gets. Naught else but agility could have done so much.
And once he had found his balance there among t
he Gets, that was a safe and easy time, the years with Morca, the first that Oliver had known since he was young. He had let himself forget that he had bade goodbye to safety and ease when he left home. He had let himself forget that narrow practice was his failing and practiced narrowly. He had lost himself in study, lost himself in thought and question, paused for a moment in dream while he wondered where his youth had flown and wither he was bound. To what end had he been born? And while he was occupied so in reverie, he had lost his balance.
Oliver had tricked Oliver and received a blow from Oliver that had set Oliver down. Where was order? His world was broken. His mind ran on its own heels in subtle circles.
He knew not what to trust, or what to believe, or what to do. Small things were disturbing—like Haldane’s dream and the trail of the wurox. He knew not what they meant. He did not know what was important and what was not—and in this event, how could he make up his mind to anything?
Oh, if instead of practicing narrowly in his cell, Oliver had truly studied to know the meaning of small signs, like the presence of kings and witches, then Morca might be alive. The world might be whole. And Oliver might still be safe and happy practicing narrowly in his cell. What of that?
But when this Rab, this lank sergeant of outlaws, loomed over Oliver and said, “What is your news, old man? I will be the judge of it,” Oliver was not so lost that he could not wither him with one squint of his odd eye. If this Rab could be defied by two wee boy outlaws, he was not a man meant to be Sailor Noll’s master.
“None of yours to know,” said Oliver. “My news is for the duke.”
And as they made their progress through the camp, Oliver gained confidence in this small game he was playing in the guise of Sailor Noll. This was a camp hungry for news if not for meat. Men called to ask what was afoot as they walked, and when the two boy outlaws said it was news, they hurried to swell the progress. Sailor Noll with his news was a safe and simple size to be.
“Is it Mainard returned?” some asked.
Earth Magic Page 12
