The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

  The tongues were wagging until the middle of the night, when the landlord finally shut up the saloon room and closed his door and put out the lights.

  The folk made their way home, still talking.

  In the morning the constable found that someone had come in the night and thrown back the bolts. Ulghrum was gone.

  Within minutes the entire village was gathered down by the temple fane, and shortly a posse was sent out to search. It returned at nightfall after following tracks that seemed to peter out down the highway toward Dronned.

  Over the next day or so several messages were sent to Dronned, and a guard was placed over Iallia Tramine, who had moved back into the Tramine house. Only a couple of servants remained in Pern Treevi's big house up on the hill.

  Thru returned to the labors of autumn, working in the seapond, putting in a new drainage system for part of the family polder. Hard work, but useful, and at the end of each day there was measurable progress. Ware, Gil, and Thru all found themselves enjoying this time together. Even Ual was appeased to some extent.

  Then one morning the weather-beaten visage of Ushk, crewmot of the Conch, appeared in the village, asking for Thru Gillo. There was intense suspicion at once of poor Ushk, who was on the verge of being arrested when Thru came running up, having been alerted as to what was happening.

  The villagers apologized to old Ushk while Thru grabbed his pack and his bow. Then after a lengthy round of farewells, with tears from Ual, and more tears from Snejet, Thru set off with Ushk down the lane to the beach. On board the Conch he found the holds stuffed with dried fish and Captain Olok in a fine mood.

  "We be tearing along with this fine wind. Be back in Tamf harbor tomorrow, I reckon."

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Once he'd reached Tamf, Thru had taken a room above a laundry on South Road, outside the walls and down near the bridge over the Tam. It was a spare space at first, but soon Thru acquired a few bits and pieces to make it home. First a bed and then some furniture, finally a loom and three long racks to hold fiber and weaves.

  While he settled himself into his new lodgings he set to work on a "Leaf" mat, and presented it to Nuza's mother on his first visit to her house. It had been accepted, but coolly. Despite their own troubadour pasts, both of them thought Nuza should retire from the life of the acrobat and marry a local farmer.

  "It is much safer to live in a village," said Nuza's mother. "An acrobat gets one injury, and her career is threatened."

  "She gets two, and it is over," said her father.

  Nuza simply smiled and gave Thru a wink whenever possible.

  "Are you sure he's acceptable to the Dronned Guild?" said her father. "They are a very exclusive Guild up there, even more than our own in Tamf."

  Nuza jumped in on that, of course. "The Dronned weavers have a high reputation, but Thru's work is better than theirs. Really, wait until you see some of his best. Do you like the 'Leaf' pattern?"

  "It is different from the usual."

  Nuza could tell that her mother did not approve of Thru or of Nuza's making love to him. She sighed. She'd been afraid of this.

  Thereafter their meetings had usually been here in his rough-and-ready room on the South Road. Around them the road echoed with the sounds of cobblers and blacksmiths at work, not to mention the bakery and the laundry below his own room. Despite Assenzi efforts, Tamf, like Dronned and most other cities of the Land, had grown beyond its old walls. Now most of the noisy and smelly industrial activities were carried out in suburban areas, while the city itself was largely residential.

  Thru had come to like his big room, although he pined for Kussha's cooking. In Tamf, Thru was getting used to a diet of sweet tea, bread, and sugared rolls from the cookshops on the South Road.

  He had started on a "Chooks and Beetles" for Nuza, and had made drawings of a "Mussels and Rakes" that was unlike any he had ever seen. His mussels were large and crudely drawn, and he would use dark green and black fiber for the dark areas and a hard, chalky white for the few areas of relief. Twelve pairs of mussels, each pair different from the rest in subtle ways, would run down the length of the mat, and to either side were the long rakes, crossed handles, dark iron tines at the bottom. For background he used a pale blue fiber made from cornstalk to suggest the sky and then shifted to a slate grey for the lower half, on which he wove a pattern in black to outline the stones of the seapond bottom. He was excited with the work, thinking about it even when he was away from the loom.

  Nuza stirred beside him in the bed. She usually slept for an hour or so after they made love. The light was beginning to fade, and she would be expected back at her own house shortly. Her mother had become critical of any absences from the evening meal. Nuza was trying not to let the storm break while she kept the two halves of her life widely separated. Thru stroked the soft fur on the back of her head and ran his fingers down her neck. She stretched luxuriantly under his touch, with the suppleness of a cat.

  Thru hadn't pushed for more visits to the family house. Except for her visits he spent his time working, breaking only long enough to grab a quick bowl of chowder now and then. He had an urge to make every second count.

  "Leaf" mats piled up on the rack. When he had six of them he switched to a new pattern, this time a dramatic reworking of "Bushpod" with bright green pods entwined with stems in yellow on a reddish background.

  Nuza was convinced that he was on his way to acceptance as a significant artist. He was proposing the most radical shift in mat weave since the great Oromi. Behind his radical notions lay interesting design and solid competence in weaving technique.

  She was awake by then, sitting up with the quilt around her breasts, her eyes blinking in the dim light of late afternoon.

  "Did you sleep?" he asked.

  "Yes, but I dreamed my mother was scolding me."

  "Ah." He grinned. "You know, I can imagine how that must have felt." Nuza snuggled up against him.

  "I really didn't expect her to be so difficult."

  "Well, my mother gave me a good going-over before I got out of the village. She hates the thought that I might settle with someone outside of her own kin."

  "That's the old village way of thought."

  "I suppose I won't be invited to dinner on Midwinter fest."

  "At the moment, no. But I think the troupe will hold their own dinner, at the vagabond's hall."

  "And where will you be?"

  "I will be at home. Mother will expect me to wait on her while she decorates the tree. It is a very solemn occasion in her family."

  "Then I will loft a cup of mead in your direction before I sing with Hob and the rest of them. At least they seem like a cheerful crew."

  "Everyone except Toshak. You'll find he's a quiet soul on that day. No one knows why."

  "He never told you?"

  "Toshak has many mysteries in his past. That is just a minor one."

  She rose and dressed. She wore thick wool trousers and knee-high brown boots. Her blouse and tunic were of finest grey Mauste, and at her throat she wound a pale blue scarf of silk from Geld.

  "When can you come again?"

  "I'm not sure. Maybe the day after tomorrow. Mother has taken to trying to keep me busy with holiday preparations. She watches me like a hawk watches a rabbit."

  "There's a meeting of the Questioners that day."

  "Will you go?"

  "Yes, especially if you do."

  "It's at the house of the reverend elder, Mekel Hooser. You'll find it on River Road, close to the north gate."

  Thru was holding her hands, looking into her eyes. "When I look at you, I think the Questioners must be wrong. There had to be a plan to make the world so fine and fair. It had to be guided by a beneficent spirit to bring me something so beautiful."

  She smiled. "Flattery will take you far, my lover."

  They spent the next few days together as much as possible until, at the last minute he decided to return to Warkeen for the festival. Nuza was going to be c
ompletely wrapped up in her own family's doings for the festival, and his own parents desperately wanted to see him at their table.

  By great good fortune, the trade ship Elmert was in Tamf harbor and about to leave for the north. The wind was favorable and the Elmert made Dronned the next day. From there his luck continued, and a local fishing boat took him around to the estuary of the Dristen River. From the beach he walked up to the village and caught everyone by surprise. The joyful noise in the Gillo household brought inquisitive neighbors from all directions, and soon there was a party in progress.

  The festival itself began the next day with the biggest feast of the year. In the morning there was a packed ceremony at the Fane of the Spirit and at noon an athletic contest. If the river had frozen in time, there would be skating and curling contests on the ice. Otherwise, there would be a footrace up the road to Meever's and back, the winner to become the feted Winter King.

  This was one of the years of mild winter weather. The river had scarcely frozen at all, and so the race to Meever's was run. Thru was not the fleetest of mots, and though he was capable of running the distance, he doubted that he'd come in even in the first fifty. Instead he watched the runners start and then sat in Snejet's parlor and washed down a pie of honeyed bushpod with some mulled ale.

  Snejet was obviously very happy in marriage. She wore tiny white-and-pink ribbons tied into the fur of her head and spoke happily about all that had happened in his absence.

  "The harvest was very good. We sold Merchant Yadrone a fair ton of bushpod. Father was very pleased. He plans to put on fresh thatch for the whole house next year."

  "And how has Gil been?"

  "Gil has grown now that he's out of your shadow, brother. With his help and with Oiv, we've been able to free Ware from farm work so he can concentrate on carving. That's helped a lot, too."

  Thru was cheered by all this news. But the inevitable question had to be asked.

  "And Mother?"

  "Oh, Thru, she grieves. When she thinks no one is listening she weeps. It's so sad to hear her, but she cannot be comforted."

  Thru acknowledged that he had caused their mother hurt, but he refused to be talked into staying in Warkeen through the rest of the winter. His path was set, and it lay in Tamf.

  "No one has come forward to claim the reward put on that villain Ulghrum."

  "I didn't expect they would capture him. He's gone south. I expect he's in Fauste or maybe even Mauste."

  "Funny you should say that, brother, because we heard that Pern has gone to Mauste. He has some plan for learning the secrets of making Mauste cloth. Everyone in the village hopes he stays there and never comes back."

  "And Arin Huggles?"

  "Has never been seen again."

  "Ach, so I feared. A bad business that."

  "Iallia isn't seen around much either. She stays in the Tramine house. I talk to the Tramine mors, and they say she's gone very cold and hardly has a kind word for anyone."

  Snejet's gossippy tongue roved on. There was dame Eltha Bik's loss of memory, and Hinger Alford's incredible hive of bees, which had produced a record amount of honey that year.

  "Hinger says they're amazing. He's had only one sting from them all season, too."

  Then, at last, it was time to go downstairs for Ual's festival feast. Ware had already broached a keg of winter ale and the chooks were having a wild party in the yard. Chooks were notoriously light of head when it came to ale. Now the roosters were crowing and the hens were dancing while a foot drum thundered away to keep the beat.

  Ual and Gil brought out platters of stuffed crabs with bushpod crepes in honey. Then came a whole salmon baked on the hot coals and later a haunch of venison, roasted over a fire in the yard.

  After the meal the family went down to the green in the center of the village.

  Chooks, already well stuffed with bushpod and beans, were given more ale before they started their midwinter dance. It celebrated the role of the chook in the village economy, for chooks suppressed insect pests to such an extent that the village harvest was doubled from what it would have been without the big foolish fowls. After a while the jumping of the chooks infected even the oldest mots and mors, replete though they were, and they too got to their feet and started dancing.

  When things were really bouncing there came a blast from the constable's trumpet and the Winter King was carried in by four stout mots and set on his throne. The Winter King this year was young Yerri Hipens, who'd won the race earlier in the day, coming in a good hundred yards ahead of the second mot. The Harvest Queen then crowned the Winter King, and ended her own reign. There was raucous applause and the Winter King sang his song and after a verse or two the musicians picked it up and amplified it and everyone returned to dancing.

  So went the festival for Thru, a mixture of great meals and sentimental memories reawakened. Afterward he returned to Tamf in much the same way he'd come north, catching a ride on a fishing boat heading south to Dronned. The boat this time was Dory Alma under Captain Murflut. She was heading back to Dronned with a full hold of cod and halibut from the northern grounds. Murflut was happy to take a few more shillings from Thru to carry him around to the city.

  That night, off Raker's Point, they drank seabeer together, and he told them how the festival had gone in Warkeen. They listened with sad expressions. For them it had been just another day of hard work. That was the lot of the fishermot: He must be at sea when the fish are there, not when festivals dictate.

  "But though we didn't have much to feast on and nothing but seabeer to drink," said Captain Murflut with a grin, "we had a visit from the spirits."

  "Oh?"

  "We saw sails in the moonlight," said sailor Pukli. "Big as houses, tall as trees they were."

  "They were stacked three deep. I never seen real sails like that." Murflut refilled their mugs.

  "We all saw it," said Mitz, the remaining member of the crew. "It was a vision sent to us all. It must mean something good, but I don't know what it could be."

  Thru was excited by their news. These fishermots had been touched personally by the Spirit. The Questioners had to be wrong, the Spirit was real, and it not only listened passively to their meditations and prayers, it reached out actively to help them.

  "Where did you see this?"

  "We were out past the western banks, in the lee of Roam rocks. The sea shelf there is always good for cod in winter."

  "Aye, we were setting lines at night when it happened. We were looking west when the sails appeared. They went from south to north, and we lost sight of 'em in sea mist."

  "It were a misty night," said old Pukli. "Made me wonder if I was just imagining it. Trick of the moonlight or something."

  "But we all seen it, so it had to be more than that."

  "When you get home you have to tell the Assenzi. Go to the temple, talk to Melidofulo. He will guide you in interpreting your vision."

  "Go to the Assenzi? I don't know," muttered Captain Murflut. "Not sure I like the idea of that."

  "But why? The Assenzi will not harm you."

  "I've heard tales of them things that could curl your fur."

  "You shouldn't put your trust in tales. Ask the Assenzi anything, and they will respond. They are not evil mages or wizards or some such thing."

  "Oh yes, and what do you know about Assenzi?" said Murflut.

  "Or anything else for that matter," sniggered old Pukli.

  "Well, about the Assenzi I learned a little when I was at Highnoth."

  "Ah ha, you're a Highnoth youth. That explains it."

  "But, by the Spirit," Thru had become passionate, "you should listen to me. Go to Melidofulo in Dronned. The Assenzi can tell you much about matters of the Spirit."

  Thus they argued for a while, until the conversation shifted back to the price their cod would fetch in the market.

  Thru was not sure that he had converted any of them, but he hoped they would remember his words when they thought about this remarkable visi
on they'd had.

  The next morning they made landfall in Dronned, and Thru bid them farewell. The weather had finally changed over to winter, and he was forced to stay in Dronned for several days while a winter storm battered the coast, leaving the season's first snow on the city streets.

  Thru took a room at the Harbor Inn, which soon filled up as every boat in harbor stayed put. While the storm whipped snowflakes around the streets and alleys, Thru went about his rounds. He visited Merchant Ortenod and dropped by at Merchant Yadrone's house. The merchants welcomed him and treated him to sweet wine and biscuits and the blessing of the season.

  Later he formally delivered a letter to the Grys Norvory. With it was sworn testimony from Iallia Treevi concerning the true ownership of the "Chooks and Beetles" mat. The Grys refused to meet him in person, which he had expected, so he simply left the letter and went his way.

  He stopped in at Kussha's house and found Noop waiting for the evening meal. Together they joined Bluit down at the Laughing Fish over an ale or two before returning to a feast from Kussha's kitchen.

  He learned that after he'd left them the Laughing Fish team had lost its last two games and finished well out of the running. Most of the club's members were convinced that Thru's batting would have changed that. Pern Treevi had not been popular around the clubhouse, and Rawli Perensa was said to be still outraged at the lies Treevi had told him. Treevi had last been heard of sailing south to Mauste, just as Snejet had reported.

  The next day he stopped at the House of Norvory and made an inquiry for the Grys's reply to his letter. After a wait of several minutes on the doorstep he was brusquely informed that his message had not been read and probably wouldn't be. Thru stormed off, biting his lip to keep from erupting with angry words. After walking blindly through the streets for several hours he made his way to Kussha's once more. There he took comfort in good company and later, from Kussha's magnificent evening meal.

  Afterward he thought about the problem. He could not get justice in the Royal Courts because of his lack of standing in the Guild of Dronned. There was only one way he could force the Grys to give an accounting of his actions. It was very rarely used, but it was still legal and could be called on in an extreme situation, such as that which faced Thru Gillo.