Ashling

by Isobelle Carmody

  "Maryon said her own people will be able to treat her."

  "Gypsies know a great deal about healing," Kella agreed. "You mean to return her to them then?"

  "That's one of the reasons we've come," I said truthfully.

  Kella rebandaged the arms deftly, pulled the blankets up and rinsed her fingers in a bowl. "That is all I can do for now. At least it will stop any infection from setting in. You will have to move swiftly if you are to return her alive to her people though. An injury drains life energies, and she does not have much left to lose, even with a sleep-seal to slow everything down. Come, we will go into the kitchen. You are soaked to the bone. I felt it when I touched you downstairs."

  We went back into the hall and she indicated another door. "That is one of the sleeping chambers, and there is another closer to the kitchen." She opened the door alongside. "The bath house. There are three bathing barrels and we even have water piped in. The fire over there heats the water in the pipes and then it comes out of tubes to the barrels once you remove the stoppers. Unfortunately, it takes ages to heat. I'll light it if you like?"

  I shook my head and gestured for her to go on.

  The kitchen was, in spite of its considerable size, cozy and welcoming. It had been whitewashed so that even without windows, it seemed light. The air was warm and redolent with the odor of hundreds of tiny bunches of drying herbs hung in neat rows along all of the walls. There were shelves of foodstuffs and in the center of the room, on a woven rug, a thick scrub-wood table and some stools. A fire blazing on a narrow hearth completed the picture. As I crossed at once to warm myself, Kella filled a kettle and bent to hang it on a hook suspended over the flames.

  "It's like a breath straight from Obernewtyn to see you here," she said with sudden fervency, her eyes bright. "I miss you all so much. I dream of the fields and mountains, and then I wake and I am still here."

  The depth of longing in her eyes made me feel ashamed. In spite of Maryon's doom-filled predictions, I had been glad to get away from my cloistered existence at Obernewtyn, while poor Kella lived in constant danger to keep it that way.

  "Sutrium is awful," she went on. "I never imagined people could be dragged so low. Even before Rushton took over there were times for laughter at Obernewtyn. Here no one laughs and if they do, people stare at them as if they have gone mad. And it is a hundred times worse since the plague. I pity these people their gray lives."

  "Don't pity them too much," I said dryly. "Those same pitiable souls would stand by and watch us burn without lifting a finger."

  "It's true enough. We're nowt but freaks to them," Matthew said, coming through the door carrying Maruman. The cat leapt to the ground and began to prowl about the room, smelling it. Kella knew better than to react to his presence, and pretended not to see him. Instead, she beamed at the ward.

  "Lud, but you've grown now that I see you properly, Matthew. Has Brydda's mother been using herb lore on you instead of her garden?"

  Matthew laughed. "Seems to me it's yerself who's shrinkin'!"

  I thought his jest curiously apt, but Kella only slapped playfully at his arm and urged him to dry himself in front of the fire. Catching sight of Dragon hovering in the hall behind him, shoulders hunched in misery, the healer gave an exclamation and held out her arms. Dragon rushed at her and it was some minutes before she could pry herself loose from the girl's impassioned embrace.

  "What a grub you are, love," Kella laughed. "It's a miracle you manage to stay dirty in so much rain. Will you let me wash your face?"

  Dragon froze, blue eyes livid with fear. "No bath."

  "No bath," the healer assured her, knowing as well as anyone Dragon's inexplicable terror of water. "Just a bit of a damp cloth."

  As Kella ushered her from the kitchen, I wondered if Brydda had ever managed to find out anything more about Dragon's past.

  Matthew scowled after them and I lost my temper with him.

  "What it is that you want done about her, Matthew?" I snapped. He was as bad as Dragon, with less excuse for it. He had grown much from the thin, sharp-eyed boy I had first met at Obernewtyn, but sometimes he seemed less wise nowadays. I had said so once to Maryon in a fit of irritation, and she had said that perhaps I, too, had changed.

  "They've done a good job here," Matthew said, after an awkward pause. "There is even a special yard where th' horses can graze without bein' seen."

  I drew off my soaked boots and poured some of the boiling fement into two mugs, handing him one as a peace offering. "They've had quite a bit of help from Brydda Llewellyn by the sound of it."

  "Of course," Matthew said easily, then he gave me a sharp look. "And why not? Surely ye dinna worry he'd betray us?"

  I shook my head. His father, Grufydd, and his mother, the herb lorist, Katlyn, had come to live at Obernewtyn after the Council learned their son was the notorious rebel, the Black Dog, so betrayal on Brydda's part was completely out of the question. "It's not Brydda. It's the others. That rebel boy that was downstairs, for instance. Did you see the way he looked at us? If he feels that way about gypsies, how is he going to react when he discovers we're Misfits? There's no point in us pretending we're all allies until it has been agreed to officially by the rebels. In spite of what Brydda says, we don't really know where we stand with them."

  "Is that why we're here?" Matthew demanded.

  I was glad when Kella's return prevented my answering.

  "I've put her into bed," Kella said. "The poor little mite was asleep before her head brushed the pillow. But why on earth did you bring her here?"

  I explained, and the healer shook her head in wonder. "She must be very attached to follow you all this way, Elspeth."

  Matthew rose explosively, pulled on his coat in one ferocious motion and went out, saying he was going to unpack the wagon.

  Kella stared after him in astonishment. "Whatever is the matter with him?"

  I laughed and, even to my own ears, it sounded a sour note. "I am beginning to suspect it wasn't me Dragon followed, but Matthew. I think he volunteered for this expedition specifically to get away from her."

  "Oh, poor Dragon," Kella said compassionately. "I remember she followed him everywhere when I saw them together last, but I thought it w;as just an infatuation."

  "More's the pity it isn't," I said, suddenly emptied of ill-humor. I stood up. "I am going to wash and put on some dry things."

  "There are clothes in a trunk in the bathing room," Kella said.

  A lantern was lit in the bathing room from Dragon's wash, and as I peeled off my soaking domes, I caught sight of myself in a mirror hanging on the wall, a long, lean girl with thick, black hair falling past her waist and irritated moss-green eyes. I glared at myself, and realized abruptly that I felt less pity for Dragon's love, than exasperation at the inconvenience of it.

  What a terrible business loving was. It was a troublesome and tiresome emotion destined more often to enrage the recipient, than to please them. Rushton's love for me, if that was what it could be called, had him determined to shut me up like a bird in a gilded cage, while Dragon's love for Matthew had driven him out of his home. What right had people to love you when you had not wanted it or asked for it?

  Of course, in Dragon's case, the only wonder was that no one had foreseen the outcome of throwing together a volatile girl, who had spent most of her life in wretched loneliness, with a boy of Matthew's easy charm. Yet Dragon had ultimately saved Obernewtyn with his help. Her heartache and his irritation must be considered a small price to pay for that.

  It seemed there was always a price to pay for loving.

  I had a sudden vivid memory of a time when, taken in by Dragon's illusions, I had thought Obernewtyn destroyed. From my hiding place I had spotted a haggard Rushton with burning eyes, and imagined him despairing over the loss of Obernewtyn. Only later had I understood that this sorrow arose from his belief I was dead.

  I shook my head and turned to rummage for dry clothing, not liking the tenor of my though
ts nor the way Rush-ton's face haunted me.

  I fled from the accusation in my face to the kitchen, bringing the lamp with me. Matthew had come back inside and he and Kella were seated in front of the fire. I pulled up a stool and joined them. Maruman came over and leapt up onto my lap. His mind was closed and I did not try to force entry to it.

  "How long before Domick comes home?" I asked Kella, wincing as claws penetrated cloth and flesh. "I presume he is at the Councilcourt?"

  The healer nodded, the smile fading on her lips.

  I guessed she was wondering if our arrival would put Domick in danger and, for the first time, I was aware of the strain in her face. There were lines around her eyes and her hands fidgeted constantly in swift, nervy gestures. I had been surprised at the strength of the longing in her voice as she talked of Obernewtyn, but now I thought of what her life in the safe house must be like. Every day she would watch her bondmate leave, knowing he went to work under the very noses of the Councilmen. If discovered, he would be killed.

  It seemed far easier to take action, than to sit and wait. People like Kella had the worst of it—the waiting and wondering, and being helpless. In asking when Domick would return, I had surely voiced a question she never dared permit herself to ask.

  Hearing the stair door bang in the wind, and heavy footsteps in the hall, I felt an echo of the profound relief I saw on Kella's face.

  But when the door opened, a dark-clad stranger stepped inside.

  VIII

  It wasn't until Kella crossed the room to embrace the stranger that I realized it was Domick.

  The last time I had seen the coercer was at Obernewtyn just before he and Kella left with Brydda to establish the safe house. Then, Domick had been on the edge of manhood, brown as a gypsy with shoulder-length dark hair and bold, serious eyes. There was no sign of that youth in the man that now stood before me.

  His skin was milk pale and his long hair had been cropped very short. But most of all it was his expression that made him a stranger; or the lack of it. His face was a gaunt mask, the eyes two hooded slits. If he felt any surprise at seeing us in the safe house, it was not evident.

  As a coercer, Domick had possessed that guild's characteristic dominating aspect, but his love for Kella had seemed to soften and temper his intensity. I could not begin to imagine what had happened to turn him into this hard-faced man.

  "Has something gone wrong at Obernewtyn?" he asked, in a voice as even and emotionless as his expression.

  "That is a harsh greeting for old friends," Kella scolded him gaily, and I saw that she had not mentioned his transformation because she did not perceive it It seemed that love was truly blind.

  Domick exerted himself to produce a semblance of liveliness. "Kella is right. Forgive my abruptness. It has been a bad night, but it is good to see you both." He smiled, but his eyes remained remote, and again I found myself wishing for empathy; this time to tell me what seethed under the stoniness of his face.

  The coercer removed his oiled cloak, and I saw the tension in his movements as he crossed to hang it on a peg beside the fire. Sitting down, he reminded me of a spring coiling tight for a hard recoil. Maruman watched him, then hissed and sprang from my lap to prowl about the room.

  "You have chosen a bad time to visit," Domick said, glancing up to indicate the rain thundering down on the roof.

  "Needs must," I said.

  He gave me a swift look. "Need?"

  For the second time that night, I told the story of the rescue of the gypsy, and of our decision to return her to her people when Roland could not heal her. Despite my previous decision to tell them everything when we were all together, I said nothing of Maryon's predictions. Some instinct kept me silent in the face of Domick's queerness. At the same time, I realized there was no real need to speak of it at all. Either I would succeed or not. Telling them would change nothing.

  "It was a risky thing for you to have gone in alone to face the Herder," Domick reproved. "Those villagers might have killed you at once."

  "Not with th' gypsy shootin' arrows at them from th' trees," Matthew said gleefully. "Besides we could hardly leave her to burn now, could we?"

  An odd expression flitted over the coercer's face. "Sometimes you have to put up with a lesser evil in dealing with a greater one."

  Kella stared fixedly into the fire, as if disengaging herself from the conversation, but Matthew was openly indignant.

  "Ye mean, we should have left her? I doubt she'd call that a lesser evil!"

  Domick shrugged. "If you had been caught it would not have helped her and it may well have done great, even irreparable damage to our cause. Which, then, would be the greater evil? To let an unknown woman die, or to save her and see your friends perish for it?"

  "We got her free didn't we, an' we weren't caught?" Matthew returned stubbornly. "If we thought like you, we'd nowt even have tried. There's evil fer ye. Nowt even tryin' to fix somethin' that's wrong."

  "You are naive," Domick said dismissively. "If the woman is as sick as you say, there is every likelihood she will die despite your help."

  Matthew flushed. "Meybbe I am naive, but rather that than bein' someone with ice fer blood an' a clever tongue an' shifty brain instead of a heart!"

  They stared at one another for a moment, then Domick relaxed back into his seat. "And is that the reason you have come to Sutrium, Elspeth? To pay a social visit and to take an irrelevant gypsy back to her people?"

  I suppressed a surge of anger at his callousness, and the temptation to tell him what Maryon had futuretold about this irrelevant gypsy. "I would like to see Brydda Llewellyn," I said mildly. "He might be able to suggest some safe way to locate her people."

  "I am not sure there will be any way that could be called safe," Domick said. "Is she a halfbreed? I suppose she must be," he answered himself.

  "I think so. Yes," I added more positively, remembering the Herder had called her that. "Does it make a difference?"

  Both Kella and the coercer nodded.

  "A Twentyfamilies gypsy would not break the Council lore forbidding healing," Domick explained.

  "Twentyfamilies?" I echoed, startled to hear the odd word again. "What does that mean?"

  "It is the name pureblood gypsies give to themselves," the coercer said. "It was not a name any but traders of expensive trinkets knew until the Herders started bandying it about. They hate gypsies and Twentyfamilies most of all, because it was they who negotiated the safe passage agreement with the Council that exempts gypsies from Herder lore. Herders preach that gypsies ought to be made to settle. They claim the plague was spread by their wanderings."

  "The Herder in Guanette said the plagues were a punishment from Lud because of people ignoring the Faction," I said.

  Domick shrugged. "Same thing. There is a lot of talk to that effect encouraged by the Herders, but it will not give them power to force the Council to make the Twentyfamilies settle. The halfbreeds are not so lucky for the safe passage agreement no longer includes them, yet nor are they allowed to settle. They are persecuted by Landfolk and Herders alike, as you know. But it is worse since the plague."

  I began to see that returning the gypsy within the days remaining of Maryon's futuretold deadline would be even harder than I had anticipated. Hitherto, I had imagined I understood something of gypsy society, but in truth what I knew arose solely from memories of a friendly troop of gypsies, who had come through Rangorn every few seasons when I was a child. I did not even know if they had been pure or halfbreed, because skin color among gypsies varied so much.

  "You talk about Twentyfamilies gypsies and halfbreeds as if they were two separate races," I said.

  "That is very nearly what they are," he answered. "The division between them has its origins in the days when gypsies first came to the Land. Some say they walked here, others say they came by sea. Either way, they didn't want to be ruled by Council or Herder lore so they came to an agreement with the Council to remain as visitors, never settling o
r farming the Land, never owning any of it."

  "I know all of that," I said, faintly impatient.

  "I suppose you know, too, how they got the Council to agree to let them remain as visitors?" Domick snapped.

  Abashed, I shook my head. "I'm sorry. Tell it your own way."

  He went on. "In exchange for safe passage status as visitors, the gypsies offered a yearly tithe: a percentage of the craftwares their people produced. Their works are rare and beautiful and none but Twentyfamilies artisans know the secrets of crafting them."

  I remembered the soldierguard at the gate saying half-breed trinkets were worthless while Twentyfamilies wares were much coveted, and felt a sudden curiosity to see them. Without warning, it came to me where I had first heard the term Twentyfamilies. The acolyte in Guanette had shouted something about them. "Even Twentyfamilies ..." he had said venomously, but I could not remember the rest of his words.

  "The craft skills are what separate pureblood from half-breed. In the early days, there were some gypsies who mated with Landfolk, and so halfbreeds were born. In those first days, there was free trade of knowledge and blood between full and halfblood gypsies. But that ended with the Great Divide." Domick said. "Purebloods do not now teach their skills to halfbreeds. Therefore halfbreed wares are pale echoes of their work, based on little-known or half-recollected formulae and recipes. Invariably inferior, they bring scant coin whereas the purebloods make more than enough to live well from what remains of their work after the tithe."

  "Why dinna Twentyfamilies gypsies teach th' halfbreeds th' craftskills?" Matthew demanded indignantly. "A half-breed mun have at least one pureblood in their line of descent. Dinna this tie mean anything to them?"

  "Once, there was no difference between half and purebloods," Domick said. "But halfbreeds weren't as scrupulous about obeying Council lore as the Twentyfamilies. That caused a lot of strife. Finally, the Twentyfamilies leader had no choice but to announce the Great Divide cutting halfbreeds off absolutely from purebloods. The Council accepted the division because it allowed them to control the troublemaking halfbreeds, without breaking contract with the Twentyfamilies. The Great Divide was a matter of survival for the purebloods. They had to maintain the exclusivity of their work because it was their only leverage. And they do not abuse the safe passage agreement, for they keep to themselves and are scrupulously honest. It is hard on the halfbreeds, though. It would not be so bad if they were permitted to settle and become ordinary Landfolk, but in spite of the division, people regard gypsies as gypsies. They resent the wealth and inviolability of the Twentyfamilies gypsies, so they take it out on the halfbreeds."