The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

  "Yes, my son, but only while you are young and have those quick wrists."

  "Well, perhaps by the time I slow down I'll have gained entry to the Guild in Dronned. Then I can live in the town and weave full-time."

  "Mmm, I suppose. You've set your course by an uncertain star, my son, but you have great talent. I don't doubt that somehow you'll do well."

  "Thank you, Father, that means a lot to me, knowing that you understand. And while I'm young I'll be able to roam all over the Land, which is something I love to do. Nuza says we may even go to Mauste next summer."

  Ware's eyebrows rose. "Mauste? As far as that? Well, I'll be blessed, that's a long way to go to juggle and bat the ball."

  "But I will always come back to help with the harvest."

  "You know we'll need you."

  "Aye, Father, though you'll have Oiv and Snej too."

  "Oh yes, and Oiv's a good worker. Of course he has his own land to work, and Snej will be a mother in no time, you mark my words. She'll have her hands full with youngsters, and that always cuts down a mor's time in the seapond."

  "And Gil is grown now."

  "Aye, Gil is a farmer in his bones. He will stay."

  Gil was a sleepy-eyed young mot, with a gentle heart and a steady way about him, but little of the brilliance that had shown in the first son. Ware was still amazed by what his firstborn had grown up to become. Living with an acrobat in another realm! Earning money by hitting the white ball and weaving artistic mats. Such things were far away indeed from working good polder.

  Together they looked over the festive scene. Mots and brilbies were dancing, the musicians were absorbed in their music, and the crowd was clapping along. A gang of chooks led by Tucka and Pok was bobbing about behind the musicians.

  "I have not seen Pern Treevi throughout this festival," Thru commented.

  "Oh, you don't see that one down here much anymore. He's got his mor locked up in her fancy house on that ruined field, and he stays in Dronned. He's a mischief maker, mark my words, and will come to a bad end."

  Thru nodded, barely finishing his beer before he was pulled back into the dancing. Toward the end of the King-of-Dronned reel, Thru let go of his partner's hand and turned away to join the line of mots, idling to one side while the mors danced back and forth in the ancient pattern.

  Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm. He looked down and found a child, her scalp done up with white ribbon bows.

  "Please, Master Thru, this is for you." She pressed a small scrap of scroll into his hand, then disappeared into the crowd.

  Puzzled, Thru stepped out himself and opened the scrap of paper under a lantern hanging from the eave of the village hall. Written in a hasty scrawl, he read, "Come and see me, I have information that can save your life."

  It was signed, "Iallia."

  Stunned, he looked up. Past the crowd, over the low thatch roofs in the distance he saw a single light at Pern Treevi's big house on the hillside. Was it a trick of some kind? Was Ulghrum waiting up there to kill him?

  Trick or not, he was still impelled to find out. But first he went home and collected his bow and quiver of fine steel points. If it was Ulghrum up to his tricks, then he'd get more than he had bargained for. Thru climbed the road out of the village, which was alight from the bonfire and alive with the sound of the revels. Across the field to his right he could see lights at the main Treevi house, where some kind of party was in progress, Pern's big new house was dark by comparison. Cautiously he entered the front gate, and with an arrow nocked and ready, he scouted the house.

  There was no sign of anyone around, but for that single light in an upstairs window.

  At length he stepped up and rapped the door knocker three times, then stood back, ears straining. There came a sudden rush of steps and the bolts were pulled back and the door opened a crack.

  "It is you. Oh thank the Spirit. Come in."

  He did not move.

  Iallia's eyes were red from crying, the fur on the side of her neck matted and wet.

  "You sent me this message?" He held it up.

  "Yes, but do come in. I don't want you to be seen here."

  Her distress seemed genuine. He stepped in cautiously, his bow still partly drawn and ready.

  "It's not a trick," she said. "Pern's not here. He's never here." Her voice turned harsh, and she went away into the house.

  He followed her up the stairs to a small room with a desk, a wall of books at one end and a selection of fine-quality wall mats everywhere else. There was a grand "Wheatsheaves and Crossed Scythes" by Mesho on one wall. On the other was his own "Chooks and Beetles." It brought a weird kind of pang to his heart, like seeing a loved one laid out for a funeral.

  "What do you want?" he said.

  "Oh, Thru, I am so sorry for what I did to you. I know you'll never forgive me, but I have changed. I am not the selfish little mor who broke your heart."

  "Neither of us is the same."

  "I made the biggest mistake of my life when I wed Pern. I regret it every day. But I am here, pregnant, while he is in Dronned living a wild life. He's spending his family's wealth while everything here goes to wrack and ruin."

  "So? I cannot help any of that. What did you want to warn me about?"

  "He has planned to have you murdered on the beach. A message will be sent to you very soon. It will claim to be from a ship captain that you know well. It will advise you to come to the beach at Warkeen to be picked up from his ship. If you go to the beach, you will be killed, then taken out on a boat and fed to the fishes."

  Thru felt a chill run through him. Pern had tracked him to Tamf, investigated enough to have found out about Thru's passage on the Conch, and deduced that he would be going back to Tamf on the fisherman's return sweep down the coast.

  Worse, in a way, was that it was a clever ploy. That was worrying. Pern had learned from the failure of his earlier attempts at killing him.

  "How do you know this?"

  "Because Ulghrum tells me. Ulghrum thinks I desire him."

  "And do you?"

  "No. I love you, Thru."

  He sighed, for a sweet vision of another life, a life that had gone forever. "Too late, Iallia. I love someone else, far from here."

  "I know. I have heard all about you and this acrobat from Tamf. Pern enjoyed telling me every detail he could. Pern is very cruel, Thru."

  "Why don't you leave him?"

  "Because he swears he will kill my brother and sister if I do. He is a killer. You have heard about Arin, haven't you?"

  Thru nodded. Arin Huggles, who had been in a dispute with Pern over a seapond, had not been seen for days. Everyone in the village was worried for him.

  "Arin was not the first. Nor the second." She saw the question in his eyes. "Not here, but in Dronned. Pern has killed mots who stood in the way of his dealings."

  "Pern seems to think he can do anything without fear of retribution. Tell me, why haven't you gone to the constable?"

  "Because I like the constable, and I don't want to get him killed. And then be killed myself. Pern thinks that he is above the rest of us and our petty rules."

  "It will end with someone killing him. Not everyone will listen to the Spirit's voice."

  For a moment he stared at the "Chooks and Beetles," where it hung in pride of place.

  "It is lovely, Thru. You are an artist."

  He turned to her.

  "Then I am glad you have it, Iallia. You can appreciate it."

  "Oh, Thru, Pern does, too. He has a very educated eye. He has three pieces by Mesho in this house. But he thinks your work is very good. One reason he wants to kill you. He is insanely jealous. When you broke the record in that game, something broke inside him. He was already bad, but after that he was evil."

  Thru nodded to himself. That was when the attempts on his life had begun.

  "If the result was to turn him into a murderer, then I wish I had never hit a run in my life."

  Iallia sagged against him suddenly
.

  "Oh, Thru," she sobbed, "if you ever change your mind, come back and free me from this prison."

  Thru patted her shoulders as if she was his sister, no more. It was gone, all that passion he'd once had for her. Burned out of him with grief first, then forgotten completely.

  "You must leave him and return to your family. Others will court you, Iallia; you are very beautiful."

  "But you would not come, would you?" Her softness pressed against him. She yearned to rekindle that fire that burned in him once. For a moment their eyes met.

  "No, I would not."

  He waited quietly for her to withdraw. She kept her eyes down.

  "How will I know this messenger?"

  "It will be someone from the village. An innocent party, given a message written by Ulghrum."

  He nodded slowly. It was sneaky, and it might have worked.

  "Thank you," he said. "I hope you can find your way out of this trap."

  She was left only with a final glimpse as he slipped back out into the night.

  —|—

  His mother finally cornered him a couple of days later. She got him when he was immobilized by fatigue, sitting by the fire. He'd worked all day in the seapond, up to his waist in cold water rebuilding the pond's outer wall. Now, wrapped in a towel, he sat by the fire, drinking honeyed tea while Snej made some hot buttered biscuits.

  Ual sat down across from him. From the stern set of her mouth he knew at once he was in for it.

  "My son, you have not been straight with me. In fact, you've been avoiding me ever since you came home."

  He stared back at her. She was perfectly correct.

  "You're right."

  "There, I knew it. A mother always knows."

  "Mother," said Snejet, "don't start on him now."

  "You be quiet, Miss Newlywed. I'm his mother. I didn't give birth in pain and blood and raise you from the cradle to have you run off and leave our village and wander the world like a vagabond."

  "No, Mother, of course not. I understand."

  "Then, when are you coming home for good? And when will you start to think about marriage? It is past time you were set to wed. You must come home and wear the waterweed next summer. I want to see my firstborn son produce grandchildren for me."

  "Mother," said Snejet angrily, "you will have grandchildren soon enough."

  "Yes, my dear, I know and I will treasure them. But this is my Thru, and I want him back."

  "Mother," he said quietly, "I must find my own way. From an early age I was eager to roam. The Assenzi teach that it is natural."

  "Let someone else's son be taken for this need. I want mine right here."

  "I am sorry that this has hurt you, Mother. I will try and make you proud of me nonetheless."

  "And who is this Nuza? Why are you snuggling and sexing with a mor that I have never met?"

  "We met by accident, in the city."

  The mention of the city was explanation enough to Ual, who had never been much interested in the wider world beyond her village. In that so-much-larger world anything might happen. The city had taken away her firstborn son.

  "I must meet her. It is not seemly otherwise."

  "Oh yes, you shall meet. Next summer we will come to Warkeen. Nuza has applied already for a permit to tour here in the early summer."

  "Next summer! Well, at least I will see her. But I will not know her family."

  "They are good people, Mother, but different from most that you know. They lived their earlier lives just as Nuza does, performing all over the Land."

  "By the Spirit, vagabonds, just like you. But I never raised you to be a wanderer."

  "It is not your fault, Mother. I was just born this way."

  And with that Ual had to be satisfied, but she wasn't. Nor would she be. She would never accept this loss of her first son to some other village and some other mother's family.

  Later, after supper, Thru sat with his younger brother Gil out by the woodpile. They shared a pail of harvest ale, dipping their mugs as needed.

  "We're gonna miss you in the village, Thru. There be trouble enough now."

  Thru nodded. He wasn't the only mot in Warkeen Village who had stumbled onto Pern Treevi's bad side. There was a widespread fear of Treevi now.

  "There's still no news of Arin?"

  "None. He just disappeared. Went hunting for a rabbit up Buck Creek, and didn't come back."

  "Was Ulghrum in the village then?"

  "Ulghrum comes and goes. Sometimes he's here when Pern's here, sometimes on his own."

  "He should be put on trial, but if there is no body found, then it would be hard to convict him. The constable would be loath to take it to trial."

  Gil nodded. It was a disturbing likelihood.

  Thru had another thought.

  "Is there any possibility that there are pyluk up there, and that that's what happened to Arin?"

  "There haven't been pyluk this side of Huwak Mountain in hundreds of years. We're too far from the Drakensberg ever to see them."

  Thru sighed. "Remember, brother, do not let Father go hunting alone. Go with him and keep your eyes open."

  Later, during the night, Thru lay awake for a while listening to the sounds of the house and the village at night. There were still grasshoppers scritch-scratching in the trees, but there was a definite coolness to the air. The first frost would not be long in coming.

  Pern had become a very dangerous person, for he had seen that the laws that governed the Land were weakly enforced. His kind were a rarity in the Land. Hardly anyone ever broke the most important laws, like those against murder, violent theft, and sexual assault. Such crimes often resulted in village hangings, after judgment in a Royal Court, for the laws were strict in demanding adequate proof of any crimes. There had to be evidence, there had to be witnesses. For murder trials, there nearly always had to be a body.

  Pern would try for Thru again. He wouldn't be stopped by failure. Perhaps Thru himself would be forced to abandon the way of the Spirit. Perhaps he would have to kill Pern, outside of the law.

  The next morning there was a chill wind from the north. Whitecaps pounded onto the beach and the newly reinforced walls. That night there were fires going in every house in Warkeen, and the next morning there was frost on the ground.

  Thru was with Ware in the workshop when the message came. He put down his adze and read the note, brought by young Iberto Clems.

  It was exactly as foretold by Iallia. The note purported to come from Captain Olok and told him to be on the beach at dusk. The tide would turn soon after, and Olok would want to ride it out to deep water.

  When the youngster had gone, tucking a couple of coppers into his purse, Thru showed the message to Ware.

  Ware frowned.

  "It is sooner than I had expected, but it is time the village dealt with this. We will settle this matter now."

  In a few minutes they were joined by a couple of strapping Ugerbuds, who had long since grown to hate Pern Treevi for his lies, and some mots armed with staves, a couple with bows over their shoulders. It was quite a posse when they reached the beach and hid among the tall grass that grew on the fringes.

  There was a boat on the beach.

  Thru walked on, alone.

  A figure suddenly stood up and drew his bow. Thru threw himself down, and the arrow meant for him whistled past harmlessly.

  The posse charged from concealment. The figure in the boat gave a squawk and leaped out and started pushing the boat into the surf. But, before he could get far, the Ugerbuds caught up and overturned the boat.

  They pulled Ulghrum out of the surf, stripped him of weapons, and thrust him into the center of the ring.

  "You gave a message to Iberto Clems. You gave him a shilling, a silver shilling, to take the message to Thru Gillo."

  "I deny it."

  "Clems will testify to it, and we have the message. You intended to kill Thru Gillo. You are under arrest and will be taken to the constable."
<
br />   Ulghrum wore a look of astonished rage as they hustled him up the lane.

  At one point he managed to get close to Thru.

  "That bitch will die," he hissed.

  Thru bit back any response, not trusting himself in such proximity to Ulghrum.

  The magistrate had opened the little courtroom, at the back of the village hall and was waiting when they brought Ulghrum in from the beach. The constable entered the charges. Ulghrum was invited to make a statement on his own behalf, which he refused to do without an advocate from Dronned.

  A message was drafted at once and sent south to the capital city. The magistrate, Frey Wot, bound Ulghrum over to the custody of the constable, who put him in the single cell that served as a lockup in the village. It was really a meditation cell attached to the Fane of the Spirit, but it was fitted with a heavy oak door that could be bolted shut top and bottom from the outside.

  Thru joined the constable in his office as charge papers were made out. Thru signed a statement that gave his part in the matter.

  "Iallia Treevi may well be in danger now," Thru pointed out.

  "She will go back to the Tramines. She cannot stay with Pern anymore."

  "Unfortunately, she's pregnant."

  "She can annul the marriage, on the basis of her fears. The child will then be raised a Tramine. Unless Pern can win custody, which I doubt. Pern has managed to tar himself with a lot of doubt and suspicion in a very short time. I wouldn't be surprised if the Assenzi took a look at him."

  "If there's to be a trial, it will probably be held in Dronned, and you will be called to testify. Will I be able to contact you at your father's house?"

  "No, I will leave an address. I will be in Tamf."

  "I see." The constable pursed his lips, obviously not approving.

  "In the spring I will be on the road, traveling with the troupe. I will send you an itinerary of our movements if you like."

  "Mmmm, I expect the trial will be held sooner than that. Leave me an address in Tamf, and you'll be notified when a date's been decided on."

  That night the taproom at the tavern was filled well past the normal hours as folk gathered to talk over the extraordinary events that had befallen the village. Pern Treevi was behind it all, that was certain, but Ulghrum had said nothing incriminating yet.