by Diane Duane
He broke off a bit of oatcake and dunked it in the buttermilk, and set it aside for the Goddess; then fell to with great pleasure, for he had been living on dry journeycake and water the past few days. Around him the farm people sat, and watched him intently. It was considered bad manners to ask a guest for news before feeding him, but at the same time, the effect of being stared at while eating made him feel both uncomfortable and amused. “Please,” he said to them, “you’re kind to a hungry traveler, but you needn’t wait. Who are you all, and what do you call your town?”
“Imisna,” said one of them, and Lorn nodded: it was Arlene for “flint”, and he had noticed when they first sat him down that the big stone lumps in the walls, which he had first taken for plain fieldstone, were in fact whole flints, some chipped in half to show the beautiful brown and cream striping inside. “There’s a lot of it around here,” said the woman who had been first into the kitchen.
“And this is your house,” Lorn said. “Thank you for the food. And thank your cow: the butter is lovely.”That got him a smile, and a small gracious bow like that of a great lady accepting a compliment from a courtier.
Introductions were made. The housewife was Lasif; her husbands Gare and Eglian, and her sister-wife Meo; their daughters Arine and Cylin, their son Orrest: and their neighbors were their cousin Paell and her wife Gierne. They were all tall, big-boned people. The family resemblance was strong among the fathers, the children, and the great-family’s cousin—dark or dark-fair hair, light eyes, and prominent chins and cheekbones that reminded Lorn of the facial cast of some of the people in the Brightwood. Lasif’s was the face that stood out among them, though; fair-haired, with eyes so light blue as to be almost colorless, and an intent, intense expression that sat oddly on a farming lady in a remote kitchen almost up against the south wall of the world. Looking at her, Lorn knew the mistress of this family—their spokesman, and the one who made choices after options were discussed. He finished the oatcake he was eating, broke the bread and began to butter it with the delicately carved bone knife they had given him. “What shall I tell you first?” he said.
“You said there was a battle,” Lasif said. “At Bluepeak.”
“There was,” Lorn said. “And the Queen of Darthen has set aside the Oath, since Cillmod attacked her there and at Barachael, with Reavers as his allies—”
Some of the family muttered at this. “Broken oaths,” Lasif said, “a bad business, always…. But Reavers on Cillmod’s side? That’s worse yet. When did they ever come into our country except to do us harm?”
Lorn thought of the Reaver chieftain down south, and the man’s frightened, resolute face. “It seems strange,” he said slowly, “but so many things are changing… I’m not sure it’s all bad.”
Paell and Gierne looked askance at him. Lorn took momentary refuge in buttering an oatcake. “You can smell the flowers in this,” he said. “Wonderful cow you have there.”
“What happened to the Reavers?” said one of the smallest of the children. “Did they all get burnt up and chopped and killed in pieces?”
Freelorn had to chuckle. “No,” he said. And then he lost the laughter in the memory of that cold night up on the slopes of Lionheugh, the cold of the knife-edge on his wrist, of the arrow in his chest, and the echo of the feeling of a sword in someone else’s heart. Slowly, hunting words, he tried to tell them what that night had looked like, and also tried not to make it sound as if he had been there himself. It was hard to dry it out to mere facts—an army routed, thousands of Reavers and mercenaries suddenly removed by Flame to their points of origin—when you had before the mind’s eyes the reality of it: the huge black Dragon-shadow tearing itself away from the hillside, suddenly coming real, the blaze of blue Fire running down the hill, the huge doors that opened awfully onto places thousands of miles away, the cries of the terrified souls falling through them—
Freelorn blinked at the memory. He had not been conscious to see those things. He had heard them described often enough by his people, but that was not the same as remembering.
He looked up to find Lasif’s thoughtful gaze resting on him.
“You were near to the battlefield,” Lasif said.
“Too near by far.” Lorn reached for another oatcake. “The people coming away from there… had quite some stories to tell.”
The people around the table looked at one another. “And what happened then?” Lasif said. Of that, Lorn had not much more than “rumor” to tell them. Armies were moving, certainly, but Lorn was purposely vague about locations.
“And is it true the young king’s coming back?”
“That’s what we hear—”
This produced a storm of opinion. Some of the children scowled: one burst into tears and put her face into Lasif’s apron to be comforted. Paell and Gierne looked at one another and nodded, with slight smiles. Gare looked concerned, and Eglian said, “That one! He ran away until he saw his chance—the country half starved and ready to take off their belts for any ruler that’s not the Uncraeft. A real king would have taken his chances right away, not left us to starve slowly and the land to rot, just to suit his purposes. He wants killing.”
“Cillmod will have his chance,” Lorn said, trying to hold onto his composure. “There will be a great battle, this fall.”
“And how many of us will die in it?” Orrest said, somber. “Or of it? No matter who wins. Who knows which side to be on? For the winning side will punish the losers. And even winners are forgetful about the people who helped them, the country people, when the battle’s done. There’s nothing in all this for us. This shouldn’t have been let to happen!”
“But a moment,” Lasif said, and the room got quiet. “There is something about this that matters more than mere battles. If the young king now knows he was wrong, and has come back to live or die, that’s worth knowing. And more than that, even; is this true, what they say? About the man, the man with the Fire?”
“I saw him at Bluepeak,” Lorn said. “It’s true.”
“And is it true what we heard, that he found his Fire because of the king? For love of him?”
Lorn swallowed. “That’s what I’ve heard too.”
Lasif nodded for a moment, and drank. “Then,” she said, “the young king is an instrument of the Goddess, a tool of Hers, and perhaps had less chance in what he did than we might think. Such a one’s to be pitied, poor thing.”
Lorn sat still, desperately hoping that nothing showed in his face of the hot wave of shame that ran right through him at her words. For he knew perfectly well that this was not the case, that it was his own cowardice, and occasional downright stupidity, that had dragged Herewiss into the situations which had resulted in the breakthrough of his Fire. No Goddess Who was good would force one of Her creatures into such idiocies, such thoughtlessness, just to produce a miracle in someone else, no matter how great.
… Would She?
“But it’s the Fire that’s important,” Lasif was saying to Orrest now, he having said something that Lorn had missed. “If one man can have it, so can others. That’s the wonder of all this! And the danger too,” she added, more quietly. “For the gift was lost once before, the stories say. By misuse. It could happen again… ” She shook her head. “But that danger’s a hundred lifetimes off. Not our problem! This next season will be bad enough.”
“Has the weather been bad for you?” Lorn said, desperately glad to retreat into something safely banal.
Orrest gave him a wry look. “Not as bad as last year,” he said, “when we had the drought. Or the year before that, when we had the windstorms. It seems as if Cillmod’s tame sorcerer has been doing some good after all.
Lorn became purposefully interested in the buttermilk for a moment. “Well,” he said. “There’s much more time for the news while I’m here. But perhaps you’ll tell me what you need that I might have, or be able to mend?”
The bargaining process took nearly three hours. Lorn was given an earthenware cup ha
lf the size of his head, filled with ivy wine cool from the house’s cellar, and the proceedings then adjourned to the stable, where his packs were disassembled and minutely scrutinized while the chickens wandered in and out. Everything from his smallest hook and needle to his biggest pot was passed from hand to hand, critiqued and argued over. Offers were made and rejected, made once more with slight alterations, rejected once more (though less violently); there were commiserations, complaints about rising prices and declining values, and once or twice (for the sake of form) Lorn invoked the Goddess and declared that they were all out to ruin him. It was basic market-place stuff, but the pleasure of it was sharpened by the evening light, growing more golden by the moment, as it slanted in through the small windows of the stable; by the friendly stoup of wine being passed from hand to hand, and by the sheer delight that all these people took in having someone to talk to who they’d never seen before.
My people, Lorn thought. It was too easy to think of Arlen as mostly Prydon—as the city, all astir, with its high handsome houses and streets, and Kynall Castle off behind its ancient walls: the feasts and the festivals, the crowds and splendor. But many fewer Arlenes lived in Prydon, in the houses, than lived like this… scattered through the empty fields, feasting only rarely, chaffering over bits of metal as if they made the difference between life and death… because they did. The Lion’s throne might be in Prydon, but this was its foundation—the flagstones of this household’s hearth, and all the others like it. Héalhra had been a farmer, had worked a holding like this once, had mucked out a stable like this. And then the Goddess had spoken to him….
The family settled finally for a new pot, slightly smaller than an old, holed one they had, with a half-dozen nails added to make up the difference in weight. Lorn added four needles to this, a goodwill gift of the kind any tradesman might add on his first visit to a given customer. After that Lorn would have been content to lie down in any spot they showed him, but they would not have it. Nothing would do but that he be shown the room with the bed and the door that shut—Lasif’s room, he thought, that she shared with her husbands: the bed might be stuffed with straw, but it was roomy enough for all of them, and there was real linen on it, just pulled out of the depths of the linen-press. And then Lorn was told to rest himself for a while, and the household went into a flurry of activity, as the oldest laying chicken was asked for pardon, and had its neck wrung. Parsnips were put on to roast, and more ivy wine was brought out, and the end of a side of bacon was fished out of the chimney with the smoking-hook. More butter was brought from the cold store, and milk from the afternoon milking, and buttermilk, and half a hard cheese, and half a soft one. Lorn, infected by the excitement, got no more than half an hour’s nap before giving up and going to help out in the kitchen.
They feasted him, giving the best they had, and there was no way he could have talked them out of it. This time of year, so far south, sunset came late. By an hour before midnight the dusk was just falling outside the windows, and they were still picking the roasted hen’s bones and retelling old jokes and stories. The children were asleep in chairs, or by the hearth; the cat had come in from a day’s hunting and was dozing tucked up in a warm corner.
About midnight, everyone began to tire. Lorn toasted them all in a last cup of wine, and made his way to the sweet-smelling linens, and bed. Sleep, much longed-for, leapt out of the early-morning dimness and pulled him gratefully down as soon as his head touched the straw-stuffed pillow.
***
He awoke suddenly, in the dark. Something nearby had spoken his name. He could hear the shape and sound of the word in the silence that surrounded him now.
Lorn sat up and listened. No sound: not even that of someone breathing, waiting to see what he did. No one here after all. Just a dream. The window was open, and moonlight fell through it as a silvery square on the flagstoned floor. A soft rustling came from outside; one of the cattle, moving restlessly in its byre, the next building over. The householders didn’t leave the cows outside at night, though it was warm enough to do so this time of year. There was still danger from lions.
Lorn realized suddenly that the last several cups of wine he had drunk were now clamoring to get out of him. He slipped out of the bed, felt around for his breeks, tugged them on, and then climbed out the window. Outside it was the cowyard, all dirt and straw, but looking much less prosaic than usual in the still silver light. Lorn made his way across it, found a handy drainage ditch up against the fence that divided the yard from the pasture, and proceeded to ease himself.
About five minutes later, it seemed, he was finished. He sighed, tucked himself back in, and leaned on the fence, looking out over the fields all rough with pasturage and moonlight. The cattle had stopped their shifting; he could hear the quiet breathing of them, off to the side and behind him. The moon was westering, sliding down the sky. Some distance away, across the pasture, Lorn heard a yowl: a cat challenging another one, or else threatening some other night- rover—a fox, or badger, perhaps. The yowl rose to a frightened shriek—then silence again. Behind him, the cows’ uneasy breathing got louder as the cat-yell broke off. Lorn stood there a moment more, then sighed, thought of bed, looked up at the paling moonlight, the brightening sky.
And froze, realizing where the Moon was, and where the growing light was. Wait a minute. What is dawn doing coming up in the west—?! If it was one. Not a morning color. Dark, lowering, long streaks of dark red—
Footsteps behind him, soft and heavy. The sweat broke out on Freelorn as he realized what the cat had been challenging, and had fled. He turned. The moonlight that was fading in the face of that awful light in the west, somehow still fell full and cold on the white shape that loomed up behind him, breathing soft and thick, a cold white fetid steam that jetted out of it in the icy air and blew in a sickening caress against his face. Claws reached, and the red on them was the red of the sunset, but dried-on and flaking—
Freelorn leapt over the fence and ran. It was no use, as usual; that breathing, heavy, amused, was close behind him, getting closer second by second, toying with him. He splashed through a brook—some things of the Dark couldn’t cross water. This one had no problem; it splashed through behind him, the spray of its passage hitting him in the back, ice-hot as molten metal, as he ran. He turned and fled northward over the pasture, but it was no use; that disastrous sunset was reaching around into even that airt now, so the whole sky was alight with it. And then Lorn felt the claws in his back, catching, pushing him down. He shouted in pain—
And was staring at the flint walls, and Lasif, with a rushlight in her hand, who stood there looking at him in shock from the open door.
He was breathing as hard as a man who’s been running a race. It took him a moment to get enough breath to look at her and say, “A dream.”
“So I thought,” she said. Her eyes were shadowed in the dim light. Morning was coming up, but it would be a while before its light was bright enough to see by. Shadowy, she stood and looked at him, and said, “You were quite close to that battlefield, weren’t you?”
“I think I still am,” he said, still shaking.
She nodded, and turned, and went away.
Lorn lay down again and fell asleep once more, exhausted. It took a while. His back smarted, and he knew he had much worse coming.
***
Many of the others slept late too, all but Lasif, who had to get up and milk the cow. She was working at the churn when Freelorn came in; the children were eating bread-and-butter and washing it down with buttermilk from the previous churning. Lorn was glad enough to sit down among them and have let Lasif give him a hunk of bread of his own. The butter still tasted of flowers.
“Going north?” Lasif said.
Lorn nodded and munched his bread. “Most of the business seems to be there these days.”
“As far north as Prydon, perhaps?”
“That far,” Lorn said, “probably.”
Lasif pried up the churn-top, peered in,
replaced it and started churning again. “Just be careful,” she said. “All these soldiers running around—” She shook her head. “They get ideas.”
He thanked her kindly, and went out to pack the horses.
They came out into their street to see him off, the whole family, relatives and neighbors and all. Lorn bade them all goodbye, and could not get rid of the feeling of Lasif’s eyes resting on him, thoughtful but oblique. Blackie was dancing, eager to be gone, and Lorn saw Lasif glance at him as well—thoughtfully again, noticing a horse better than a tinker needed, no matter how prosaic his packhorse might look.
He swung up onto Blackie, and nodded at Lasif. “My blessing on all of you,” he said, “and Hers.” And he rode away.
***
He made the best speed north that he could, without attracting attention to himself. Lorn was not a fool, to ignore his dreams. He knew which way he had been running, in the dream, and he was ready for the pain that would follow. So he kept telling himself.
The countryside warmed and gentled around him. Even high summer was cool, down south; but he was coming into the midlands now, no more than ten leagues from Hasmë or so; and the summer crops were standing high. Those crops had changed from the oats and barley of the southern country, to wheat and corn and other crops that needed more heat and a fiercer sun.
