Hear the call of the Huntsman’s horn;
Dawn will come though night is long;
Sing with triumph, sons of men,
Know your King will come again.
In ancient days before the world was born, the King spoke the Huntsman’s name; and in that moment, he came into being. The Horn of the Huntsman has ever sent fear into the hearts of all things black; it is the sound of righteousness at war. The Great Star-Rider was born to persecute the Blackness, and though he has gone from this world along with the King, his wrath echoes still in the heavens.
I, the Poet, have heard the call of the Huntsman. This night it rang in the tops of the trees and shimmered among the stars. No, he has not yet returned—not for many long years of the moon will the Huntsman return to sound his call. But I have heard the spirit of that call echoing back from a future day, and I have felt the Blackness quiver.
* * *
The Ploughman and his men rode up into the woods, following hidden paths through the forest. They rode through the falling of darkness and into the night, and the band of men slowly thinned out as individuals broke away and took much of the plunder with them. When at last they left the forest and began to ride through a stubbled field toward a small farmhouse that glowed in welcome, the band had dwindled to five men, the Ploughman, and the three women.
The men dismounted onto the hard packed earth outside the little house, leading their horses and that of the Ploughman away to the nearby outbuildings. Maggie, Pat, and Mrs. Cook swung down from their saddles, and young boys appeared from the farmyard shadows to take their mounts away. A shadow momentarily blocked the golden light that spilled from the door, and Maggie recognized Libuse standing in the doorway, dressed in peasant clothes.
The princess went to the Ploughman and they whispered together for a moment. Libuse turned and approached Maggie.
“It is good to see you here,” the princess said, smiling. She was breathtakingly beautiful as the light of the house played on her face and drew all the gold out of her hair. She caught Maggie’s hand tightly. “Your friends are welcome as well. Come! There is supper waiting.”
The princess led the eight newcomers inside, where a long wooden table had been set with bread and soup, cheese and butter. The men sat at one end and dove into the food. Maggie, Pat, and Mrs. Cook sat with the Ploughman and the princess at the other end.
A large farmwife with a permanently fixed scowl set a steaming bowl of soup in front of Maggie. She picked up a spoon and stirred the broth in circles, watching flecks of spice whirl into the center around chunks of potato. The others were waiting for her. She set the spoon down and looked up at Libuse.
“Professor Huss has been arrested,” she said. Her voice caught. “And Jerome.”
Libuse looked at her in stunned silence. She cleared her throat and asked, “Why?”
“They say the professor murdered you,” Maggie said.
The Ploughman placed his hand on Libuse’s arm, but she pulled away. She stood, her face flushed. “How could they?” she said. “How dare they?”
“There will be a trial,” the Ploughman said.
“I don’t know when,” Maggie said.
“Soon,” the Ploughman said. His face was stern, almost angry. “Why did you come here?”
Maggie did not look at his face. Instead, she looked up at Libuse again, her face pleading. “I thought if you went back, they would have to release them.”
“No!” the Ploughman said. He stood, towering head and shoulders above his lady. He took her shoulders. “They want you back. They’ll find a way to kill you and not spare the professor for it. You can’t go.”
“I must,” Libuse said. Her face was pale, but she slipped away from the Ploughman and sat back down. She picked up her spoon and took a swallow of soup, though her hand shook as she raised it to her mouth. She looked up at the Ploughman. “I will go back,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” Maggie said. “If Libuse comes back to Pravik alive, it will prove that the professor is innocent!”
“They already know that he’s innocent,” the Ploughman said. “If he really had killed Libuse they’d congratulate him for it. It’s not murder they’re concerned with.”
“Then…” Maggie said.
The Ploughman sighed heavily. “Zarras wishes to stamp out resistance to himself. He suspected Libuse’s connection to us; that’s why she was arrested. When she disappeared it provided a good excuse to go after those responsible for unrest in the university.”
“Professor Huss and Jerome,” Maggie said.
“No matter,” Libuse said. “Professor Huss is like a father to me. I can stop his execution. If I go back they will have to let him go, if only for a little while—but it will be time enough for him to leave Pravik.”
“No!” the Ploughman said again, thumping the table. “You are not going back.”
“I can’t leave them to die,” Libuse said.
“If you go back, I will come for you,” the Ploughman said. “I will ride into the city and free you myself.”
They looked at each other in silence, their faces golden in the warm firelight. Something seemed to shift in the air between them, filling the room with a strange sense of power and danger. The men at the other end of the table had stopped eating and were staring down at their leader and his lady. Pat and Mrs. Cook looked at each other uneasily. Maggie kept her eyes on Libuse.
The princess shifted in her seat, picked up her spoon, and took another sip of the steaming broth. “Well,” she said, and the men at the other end strained forward to hear her. “Why don’t you?”
The Ploughman dropped into his seat. “How can I?”
“Your men would follow you to the gates of death, you know that.”
“That doesn’t give me the right to lead them there! It is too soon, and Pravik too dangerous a place.”
Libuse set her spoon down and turned so that she was facing the Ploughman. “If you are right, and Zarras is moving against us, what choice do you have? Betray your own cause, leave the Eastern Lands, or fight back.”
“That is only one choice.”
“Then why not make the first move?”
“Libuse,” the Ploughman said, smiling gently, “you are not talking like a general. You are talking like a child who wishes to convince her parent that what is bad for her is really good.”
Libuse laid her head on his chest. He brought his hand up to stroke her hair, his ring shining scarlet in the light of the fire.
“I can’t let him die without trying to help him,” Libuse said. She lifted her head and her face was tearstained. “Can you?”
The Ploughman looked into her eyes for a long moment. He stood abruptly and waved his men out of the room. “Leave us,” he said. “Maggie, stay. Your friends also.”
The men left with a clatter, nearly knocking the table over in their haste. The Ploughman stood and began to pace by the fire. He reached for a quarterstaff near the door and feinted with it as he talked. Once again Maggie felt as though some power was in the room with them, golden power, glowing in the Plowman’s eyes, stirring with his movements. There was heat in his words; heat like burnished gold.
“I will not let the professor be killed as a murderer,” he said. “I will not let his student be slandered as an assassin. They are brave men. They have stood against corruption all their lives. They have inspired others to do the same. They have been father and brother and loyal subjects to the woman I love.”
He whirled around to face the others. “That is what my heart tells me. But what about my men? I can risk my own life; can I risk theirs?”
“Their lives have always been at risk,” Libuse said. “Since the day they determined to stand against Zarras.”
“But they made that decision to defend their children,” the Ploughman said. “Their wives, their mothers, their liberty. Not the liberty of an old man they do not know, though in his own way he has fought for them.”
He stood
still, back to the fire, the quarterstaff glowing. “It had to come to this, sooner or later,” he said. “Me against Zarras. My men against the High Police. But never did I anticipate making the first move.”
He sat down at the table and bowed his head so that it rested against the staff. “How can I lead them into this?”
“Ask them,” Maggie said.
Libuse and the Ploughman both turned to look at her. She looked down but continued to speak. “You and Professor Huss have fought to give the people a voice. To give them the freedom to choose their own destinies. So ask them. Let them decide if they will march on the castle or not.”
The Ploughman stood again, slowly. “If they refuse, then I will go to Pravik myself. I will force Zarras to listen… somehow. And if we fight, and we win, then how shall we answer when the forces of Athrom march on us? To defend ourselves is one thing, to attack an Overlord quite another. The Emperor will not look kindly on us. But if we lose, or if we don’t go at all…”
Libuse stood and took his hand in her own. “Let history write the story, my love,” she said. “It is your task to make it.”
The Ploughman’s men were crouched outside the door where their leader had sent them. He threw it open and smiled to see them there, so close that they nearly fell inside when he opened the door.
“Light the beacon fires,” he said. “We hold council in the morning.”
* * *
The scowling farmwife, whose name was Mrs. Korak, cleared away the remnants of supper. Libuse lit a candle and led the visitors out the back of the house to a low-roofed outbuilding full of empty bunks.
“I’m sorry there isn’t anywhere nicer for you to sleep,” she said, ducking through the doorway of the long, dry shack. “The hired men sleep here during the harvest. It’s nothing special, but it’s warm.”
“It’s plenty good enough for us,” Mrs. Cook said. Libuse smiled and set her candle down on top of a rough, low shelf.
“I’ll leave you, then,” the princess said. “I hope you sleep well. If you need anything, I sleep in the kitchen—knock on the back door and I’ll hear you.”
“Well, she’s a rare one,” Pat said when Libuse had left. “What did you say she is?”
“A princess,” Maggie said. “Of Pravik’s ancient ruling family.”
“And she sleeps in the kitchen,” Mrs. Cook said, shaking her head. “She’s lovely, Maggie, just lovely. And to think you saved her life!”
“I didn’t do it alone,” Maggie said, lowering herself down on the cot next to Mrs. Cook. “Good men gave their lives for her.” The thought of Jerome came to her, waiting to give his life, and she shut her eyes tightly. She leaned her head against Mrs. Cook’s shoulder. In a moment she found herself burrowed in the older woman’s arms.
Mrs. Cook patted Maggie’s shoulder, a gesture meant to ease trouble as much as it could. “I’m here now, dear,” she said, “and Pat, too. Why, you’re practically home!”
“It’s good to be home,” Maggie said. Pat chuckled.
Mrs. Cook’s arms tightened around Maggie. After a while Maggie sat up and said, “Tell me why you left Londren. You didn’t come just to find me—I’m sure you didn’t. I want to know everything.”
Pat and Mrs. Cook looked at each other. The whole story came out—of Lord Robert’s unexpected arrival, of Virginia and her strange gift, of the High Police, and of their escape over the Salt Channel to the continent.
“And you, Maggie?” Pat probed when they had finished. “You’re not the same person who left us. What has happened to you?”
So Maggie told her own story. It seemed incredible that so much had happened in such a short time. Her life in Londren seemed very far removed from this life of rebels and Gypsies and evil shadows that lived and breathed. When she talked about Jerome, her throat tightened and her heart burned, but she told them only that he was Huss’s apprentice and a brave man.
When she had finished her story, she drew the scroll out from her coat and unrolled it gingerly. The candle burned slowly down to the brass holder while Maggie told her friends everything that Jarin Huss had told her; of the King and the Order of the Spider and the Gifted.
“So,” Mrs. Cook said when Maggie had finished, “it would seem my life has come full circle at last. I never wanted anything more to do with the council, and now here I am.”
“What are you going to do with the scroll, Maggie?” Pat asked. “If those shadow creatures were after it, isn’t it a dangerous thing to have laying around?”
“Huss thought it would be a help to us somehow,” Maggie said. “He said the truth was a weapon. I just wish I knew how to use it.”
“Weapon or no,” Pat insisted, “what are you going to do if the baddies come after it again?”
Maggie shuddered. “I don’t know. I don’t want it. Giving it to the professor was like getting rid of a fifty-pound weight. But I can’t just let the Order have it again.”
“Give it to the Ploughman,” Mrs. Cook suggested. “He can protect it, if nothing else.”
Maggie rolled the scroll back up and ran her fingers along its surface. “You may be right,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
“Well, of course,” Mrs. Cook said. She laid down on her bunk with a sigh. “There can’t be much danger in keeping it for one night longer.”
Maggie curled up on the bunk next to Mrs. Cook. She fell silent listening to the familiar rhythm of the older woman’s breathing. Oh, how she had missed the presence of these two! In their company, she almost knew herself again—but then the thoughts and feelings of her new life crowded in. Only now, Pat and Mrs. Cook had entered her new life, and they loved the new Maggie just as they had loved the old. She was comforted by the thought.
After a few minutes, Maggie heard Pat’s footfalls on the wooden floor, and through closed eyes she felt the darkness deepen as Pat snuffed out the candle.
Maggie lay awake a little longer. From her bunk she could see out the window, where far over the brown fields a beacon flared to life.
“Look at that, would you?” Pat asked, her voice drowsy.
“Go to sleep,” Mrs. Cook said. “I’ve no wish to look at anything but the backs of my own eyelids.”
Maggie smiled and rolled over so that she faced away from the blazing signal.
She slept as a child; content.
* * *
The laird’s sleep was dream-plagued that night. He awoke more than once feeling as though he was wrestling with something; as though he struggled with a shapeless enemy. Every trace of the actual dreams vanished when he opened his eyes, and nothing would recall them. Once or twice he went to check on Virginia, and always she was sleeping soundly. Even in sleep a strange light seemed to emanate from her face, and he felt hunger as he looked at her. Deep hunger, gnawing at him.
A dream woke him for the last time when the sun was just beginning to fill the world with its rays. The air was cold and crisp and smelled like winter. The laird lay in bed and thought of Pravik. He made his plans before stirring from the bed. They would catch an early train and reach the city just as the sun was setting. Then it would be a simple matter of finding Jarin Huss. Perhaps the Easterner could shed some light on what had happened to Virginia. Perhaps he could make her trust them and tell them more.
An hour had passed when Lord Robert swung his long legs out of bed, pulled on his clothes, and headed down the hallway in search of Virginia. He rapped lightly on her door. She called to him to come in. He began to open the door, then paused as a sound like the beating of heavy wings came from inside. Shaking off a feeling of foreboding, he opened the door. Virginia was sitting in a rocking chair next to her bed, waiting. There was no one else in the room, man or bird.
Still, the foreboding grew stronger. Virginia was sitting straight, her back stiff, her hands folded in her lap. She did not even turn her head to acknowledge the laird’s presence. The sight of her called to mind a hundred visits to the side of the mountain in Angslie, where Virginia’s strangenes
s had always followed a vision.
The laird swallowed his desire to know. “The next train for Pravik should come through in about half an hour,” he said. “I would have come for you sooner, but the train station is not far.”
Virginia bowed her head and spoke so quietly that Lord Robert could hardly hear her. “Laird,” she said, “must we go to Pravik?”
It was such a strange question that Lord Robert was taken aback by it. Then annoyance flared up in him, and he said, “Of course. What would you rather do, go back to the High Police?”
Virginia’s head remained bowed. She did not respond.
“I’m sorry,” Lord Robert said, suddenly weary—far too weary for first thing in the morning. “Of course we must go to Pravik. I need the help of Jarin Huss.”
“I have seen,” Virginia said. “Last night.”
“What was it?” he asked. The foreboding still hung over him; contesting now with his curiosity.
“I saw you,” she said. When she looked up, her face was pale. “You were falling into darkness, and I could not reach you to stop your fall.”
Her voice broke. Lord Robert could see that she was struggling not to cry.
“If we stay away from Pravik, it may not happen,” Virginia said. “Please, let us go anywhere but there.”
Lord Robert looked out Virginia’s open window at the town that spread below them. He could see the train station just down the street, and the black smoke of the iron serpent waiting to leave. As he looked away from the view, his eyes rested on something on the windowsill. A feather.
With a suddenness that took him by surprise, he turned to Virginia and said, “No. We are going to Pravik. I have traveled too far to turn back now!” His voice gentled, and he knelt down by Virginia’s chair. “It will be all right,” he said. “You’ll see.”
He took her arm. They left the room and the inn behind.
* * *
The Seventh World Trilogy omnibus Page 20
