Two To Conquer ELF

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “There, my beauty…” he said, stroking the bird lovingly. “Go and see what they are doing…”

  He flung the bird into the air; it winged away on long, strong pinions, wheeling overhead and disappearing into the clouds. Melora slumped in her saddle, her vague eyes closed, and Gareth said in an undertone, “There is no need for you to stay here, sir. I’ll stay in rapport with her and see all she sees through the eyes of the bird. I’ll come and make my report to you when we ride on again.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “How should I know, sir?”

  Again, Bard felt the sense of a reproof from the old campaigner. Was this, he wondered, why King Ardrin had given him this command, to show him all the little things he should know, in addition to fighting… including the courtesy one should show to a skilled laranzu. Well, he would learn.

  Master Gareth said, “When the bird has seen all it needs to see, and is on its way back to us, then we can ride on. It will find us wherever we are; but Melora cannot ride and stay in rapport with her bird. She would fall from her donkey, and she is no skilled rider at the best of times.”

  Bard frowned, wondering why they had sent a woman with the troops who could scarcely sit a donkey, let alone a horse!

  Master Gareth said, “Because, sir, she is the most skilled at rapport with sentry bird of any leronis in Asturias; that is a woman’s art, and I am not myself so skilled. I can share rapport with the birds enough to handle them without being pecked to death, but Melora can fly with them and see all they see, and interpret it to me. And now, sir, if you will forgive me, I must not talk any more, I must follow Melora.” His face shut down, his eyes rolled up into his head, and Bard, looking at the whites of his eyes, felt a shudder of dismay. The man was not there; some essential part of himself was off with Melora and the sentry bird…

  Suddenly he was glad that Geremy had not come with them. It was bad enough to see this stranger go away into some eerie realm where he could not follow; if it had been his friend and foster brother, he would have found it unendurable.

  The third of the leroni had removed her gray riding cloak, throwing back the hood; he could see now that it was a slender young girl, with a pretty, remote face, her flaming hair curling around her cheeks, beautiful and serious. As she saw Bard’s eyes on her, she colored and turned away, and something in the shy gesture reminded him of Carlina, frail, almost wraithlike.

  She was leading her horse toward the spring, with only the faintest glance at her two colleagues, entranced on their mounts. Bard dismounted and went to take her horse’s bridle.

  “Damisela, may I assist you?”

  “Thank you.” She surrendered the reins to him. She did not meet his eyes; he tried to catch her glance, but only saw the color rising in her face. How pretty she was! He led the horse to the water hole, standing with one hand on the reins.

  He said, “When Master Gareth and Dame Melora come back to themselves, I will send two of my men to care for their horses.”

  “Thank you, sir; they will be grateful, for they are always weary after long rapport with the birds. I cannot do it at all,” the girl said. She had a small, whispery voice.

  “But you are a skilled leronis?

  “No, vai dom, only a beginner, an apprentice. Perhaps I shall be one day,” she said. “My gift at the moment is to see where they cannot send a bird.” Again she lowered her eyes and colored.

  “And what is your name, damisela?”

  “Mirella Lindir, sir.”

  The horse had finished drinking. Bard said, “Have you a food bag for your horse?”

  “By your leave, not now, sir. The horse of a leronis is trained to stand quietly for a long time without moving—” She gestured to the two motionless figures, Master Gareth and Melora. “But if I feed mine, it will disturb the others.”

  “I see. Well, as you will,” Bard said, recalling that he should go among his men and see what they were doing. Prince Beltran should see to them, of course, but already he had begun to mistrust Beltran’s skill, or even his interest in this campaign. Well, so much the better; if this went well, it would be all the more to Bard’s credit.

  Mirella said shyly, “Don’t let me keep you from your duties, sir.”

  He bowed to her, and went; her eyes, he thought, were beautiful, and she had a shyness not unlike Carlina’s. He wondered if she was still a virgin. She had looked at him with interest, certainly. He had promised himself that he would give up his wenching, remain faithful to Carlina, but on campaign a soldier should take what was offered. He was whistling when he rejoined his men.

  He was pleased when, some time later, the pretty Mirella, shrouded in her gray cloak again, modestly, before the eyes of the soldiers, rode toward him and said timidly, “By your leave, sir, Master Gareth has reported that the bird is on its way back and we can ride on.”

  “I thank you, damisela,” Bard said, and meticulously turned to Prince Beltran for orders.

  “Give the order to ride,” Beltran said indifferently, getting into his own saddle. When the men were all on the road again, Bard, who had watched them all ride past, his eyes alert for anything amiss in any one of them, a piece of equipment rusty, a horse that might be showing the first signs of having picked up a stone or throwing a shoe, rode on to join the three leroni.

  “What word from your sentry bird, Master Gareth?”

  The old laranzu’s lined face looked taut and weary. He was chewing on a strip of dried meat as he rode. Melora, next to him, looked almost equally exhausted, her eyes reddened as if with crying, and she too was eating, cramming mouthfuls of dried fruit with honey between her smeared lips.

  “The caravan lies about two days’ ride yonder,” Master Gareth said, pointing, “as the bird flies. There are four wagons; I counted two dozen men beside the wagon drovers, and I saw from their gear and horses, and the fashion of their swords, that they are Dry-town mercenaries.”

  Bard pursed his lips, for the Dry-town mercenaries were the fiercest fighters known, and he wondered how many of his men had ever fought against their curious curved swords and the daggers they used in lieu of shields to their other side.

  “I will warn my men,” he said. Among the picked men were several veterans of the wars against Ardcarran. It had been, he thought, a good instinct prompting him to choose men who had fought against the Dry towns. Perhaps they could give the others some advice on how to cope with that style of attack and defense.

  And another thing. He glanced at Master Gareth and said with a faint frown, “You are an old campaigner, sir. I do not expect the women to know this, but I was taught it was unsoldierly to eat in the saddle except in the gravest emergencies.”

  He sensed the smile behind the old man’s copper-colored moustaches. “It is clear you know little of laran, my lord; how it drains the body of strength. Ask your quartermasters; they will tell you they have been issued triple rations for us, and with good reason. I eat in my saddle so that I will have the strength not to fall out of it, sir, which would be far more disruptive than eating as I ride.”

  Much as Bard hated to be reproved, he tucked the lesson away, as he did all military matters, for when he would have need of it. But he scowled at Master Gareth and rode away with the briefest of courtesies.

  Riding among the men, he dropped the word to each of them that they would be fighting, when it came time to capture the caravan, against Dry-town mercenaries; and he listened for some time to the reminiscences of an elderly campaign veteran who had ridden to war with his own father, Dom Rafael, years before Bard was born.

  “There’s a trick to fighting Dry-towners; you have to watch both hands, because they’re as good with those damned little daggers they wear as any of us is with an honest sword, and when you have your sword engaged, theyll come at you with the other hand, and bury the dagger in your ribs; they’re trained to fight with both hands.”

  “Be sure to warn the men against that, Larion,” he said, and rode on, deep in thoug
ht. What an honor it would be to him, if he could capture the clingfire intact and take it back to King Ardrin! Like most soldiers, he hated clingfire, thinking it a coward’s weapon, although he knew the strategic importance it could have in burning an enemy’s objective. At least he could make sure it would not be hurled against the towers of Asturias! Or used to burn their woodlands!

  They made camp that night over the borders of Asturias, in a small village which lay on the outskirts of the Plains of Valeron, a no-man’s-land which owed allegiance to no king, and the villagers gathered sullenly around Bard’s men as if they would have denied them leave to camp there. Then, looking at the three leroni in their gray robes, they scowled and withdrew.

  “These lands,” Bard said to Beltran, as they dismounted, “should be under allegiance to some lord; it is dangerous having them here, ready to shelter outlaws and bandits and perhaps open to some malcontent who could set himself up as king or baron here.”

  Beltran looked scornfully around, at the lean fields of scanty grain, the orchards of sparse trees of poor-quality nuts, some so scanty of leaves that the farmers had been reduced to growing mushrooms on them. “Who would bother? They can pay no tribute. It would be a poor lord indeed who would stoop to conquer such folk! What honor could an eagle have in battling an army of rabbithorns?”

  “That’s not the point,” Bard said. “The point is, that some enemy to Asturias could come here and put them against us, so that we would have enemies on our very borders. I shall speak to my lord the king about it, and perhaps next spring he will send me here, to make certain that if they pay no tribute to Asturias, at least they will pay none to Ridenow or Serrais! Will you speak with the men and make sure all is in good order, or shall I?”

  “Oh, I’ll do it,” Beltran said with a yawn. “I suppose they must know that their prince cares for their welfare. I don’t know much of soldiering, but there are enough veterans here who can tell me if there is anything amiss.”

  Bard smiled wryly as Beltran went off. Beltran knew little of military tactics, perhaps; but he knew enough of statecraft so that he wanted to win the men’s liking and allegiance. A king ruled by the loyalty of his soldiers. Beltran was intelligent enough to know that Bard had the military command of this compaign; it could hardly be otherwise. But he was taking no chances that the men would think their prince indifferent to their personal welfare! Bard watched Prince Beltran go from man to man, making inquiries about their horses, their blankets and gear, their rations. The mess cooks were building fires and something was stewing in a cookpot. It smelled extremely good, after a long day of riding, with no more noon meal than a hunk of hard journey-bread and a handful of nuts!

  Left for a moment without occupation, he found himself drifting in the direction of the place, somewhat apart, where the leroni had their camp. The memory of the eyes of the pretty Mirella was like a magnet; she could not have been much more than fifteen.

  He found her making a fire. A tent had been pitched, and through the fabric he could see the hefty form of the leronis Melora moving around inside. He knelt beside her and said, “May I offer you fire, damisela? He held out the oil-fed flint-striker which was simpler to use than an ordinary tinder-box.

  She did not turn her eyes toward him. He could see the blush he found so adorable, flooding over her pale neck.

  She said, “I thank you, my lord. But I do not need it.” And indeed, as she gazed at the piled tinder, her hand laid on the silken bag at her throat where, he guessed, she kept the starstone, the tinder burst suddenly into flame.

  He laid a light hand on her wrist and whispered, “If you would only look into my eyes, damisela, I too would burst into flame.”

  She turned a little toward him, and although she did not raise her eyes, he saw the curve of a faint smile at the corners of her mouth.

  Suddenly a shadow fell across them.

  “Mirella,” said Master Gareth sternly, “get inside the tent and help Melora with your bedding.”

  Coloring, she rose quickly and hurried inside the tent. Bard rose too, angrily, facing the elderly sorcerer.

  “With all respect, I warn you, vai dom,” Master Gareth said, “do your wenching elsewhere. That one is not for you.”

  “What is it to you, old man? Is she your daughter? Or perhaps your light-o-love, or handfasted bride?” Bard demanded in a rage. “Or have you won her loyalty with your spells?”

  Master Gareth shook his head, smiling. “None of those,” he said, “but on campaign I am responsible for the women who ride with me, and they are not to be touched.”

  “Except, perhaps, by you?”

  Again the silent headshake and the smile. “You know nothing of the world in which the leroni live, sir. Melora is my daughter; I will not have her touched by casual amours except at her own wish. As for Mirella, she is to be kept virgin for the Sight, and there is a curse on any who should take her, unless she resigns it of her free will. I warn you, avoid her.”

  Stung, red-faced, feeling like a scolded schoolboy before the level eyes of the old sorcerer, Bard bent his head and muttered, “I did not know.”

  “No, and that is why I am telling you,” said the old man genially. “For Mirella was too shy to do so herself. She is not accustomed to men who cannot read her thoughts.”

  Bard cast a resentful look toward the tent. He thought it should have been the fat and ugly Melora, the old man’s daughter, kept virgin for the Sight, for what man would want her unless he could first hide her face with a horse bag? Why the pretty Mirella? Master Gareth was still smiling amiably, but Bard had the uncanny sudden sense that the old man was actually reading his mind.

  “Come, come, sir,” said Master Gareth with a good-natured grin, “you are handfasted to the princess Carlina. It’s not worthy of you to look to a simple leronis. Lie alone tonight, and perhaps you will dream of the high-born woman who waits at home for you. After all, you can’t have every woman on whom you cast your roving eyes. Don’t show such ugly temper!”

  Bard ripped out a curse and turned away. He knew enough not to anger a laranzu, on whom the fate of the campaign might rest, but the old man’s voice, as if he spoke to the greenest of boys, infuriated him. What business was it of Master Gareth’s?

  The servant who rode to attend on the officers had made a small third camp for them, apart from the others. Bard went to taste the food cooked for the men—he had learned never to eat his own meal until horses and men were safely settled for the night—and to inspect the picket lines of the horses, then came back to find Beltran awaiting him. “You look ill-tempered, Bard. What ails you?”

  “Damned old bird of prey,” Bard growled. “Afraid I should touch his precious maiden leroni, when I did no more than offer the young one a bit of tinderl”

  Beltran chuckled. “Well, it’s a compliment, Bard. He knows you have a way with the womenl Your reputation, after all, has simply preceded you, that is all, and he is afraid no maiden could resist you, nor retain her maidenhood in your presence!”

  Put like that, Bard began to recover a little of his self-esteem, to feel less like a reprimanded schoolboy.

  “As for me,” Beltran said, “I feel it’s wrong to bring women on campaign—good women, that is. I suppose any army should have camp followers, though I’ve no taste for them myself. If I must have women about, I prefer the kind who look as if they washed more often than when they got caught out of doors during the fall rains! But good women with a campaign are a temptation to the unchaste, and an annoyance to the chaste whose mind is on their business of fighting!”

  Bard nodded, admitting the justice of what Beltran said.

  “And what’s more, if they’re available, the men will fight over ’em; and if they’re not, they’ll moon about over them,” he said.

  Beltran said, “Should the day come when I command my father’s armies, I will forbid any leronis to ride with the army; there are laranzu’in enough, and myself I think men better at that kind of skill; women are too sque
amish and have no place with an army, no more than Carlina or one of our baby brothers! How old is your little brother now?”

  “He must be eight now,” Bard said. “Nine at midwinter. I wonder if he has forgotten me? I have not been home since my father sent me here for fostering.”

  Beltran patted his shoulder in sympathy. He said, “Well, well, no doubt you can have leave to go home before midwinter.”

  “If the fighting in Hammerfell is over before the snow closes the roads,” Bard said, “I will do so. My foster mother does not love me, but she cannot keep me from home. It would be good to see if Alaric still holds me in affection.” To himself he thought that perhaps he would ask his father to come to his wedding. It was not every one of the king’s fosterlings who would be joined in catenas marriage by King Ardrin himself!

  They sat late talking, and when at last they slept, Bard was well content. He thought briefly and with regret of the pretty Mirella, but after all, what Master Gareth had said was true: he had Carlina, and soon enough they would be married. Beltran was right, after all. Virtuous women had no place with the king’s armies.

  The next morning, after a brief conference with Master Gareth and Beltran, they turned their steps toward the ford of Moray’s Mills. No one now alive knew who Moray might have been, though stories in the countryside made him everything from a giant to a dragon keeper: but there was still a ruined mill near the ford, and a little upstream from it another mill still in operation. A toll gate closed the road, and as Bard’s men came toward it, the toll-keeper, a fat and graying man, came out to say, “By order of the Lord of Dalereuth, this road is closed, my lords. I have sworn not to open for anyone who does not pay him tribute, or have his safe-conduct within his borders.”