The Wanderer Read online

  “That is a good answer, Gael Maddoc,” said the Druda. “An answer such as I am coming ever more to expect from you.” She did not know what he could mean, but with those words he smiled, and dismissed her to join her companions.

  II

  The work went on with the drills. Jehane and Gael trained with the bows, with the long, double-edged “kedran” swords, and finally, mounted, with the lance. Now the entire muster had settled into the Halfway House, the great inn for travelers, no more than twenty miles from the Great Eastern Rift. The folk who ran the inn were half-Shee, a populous family named Cluny. Druda Strawn received special treatment and a special rate for the recruits.

  The High Ground was the domain of the Eilif lords of the Shee, and mortal men continued to respect their tenure. Armies had marched over the plateau, and the precious metals and jewels had been mined out, but there were few permanent settlements and no garrisons south of the Halfway House. Before they rode out in the early morning Druda Strawn offered greeting and prayers to the Shee. Gael believed she sensed their presence. She asked Jehane how it was to have the blood of the Shee, from her grandmother, but the dark beauty said she had no special powers. In fact it might make it harder for her to make a good match—or so her father teased her mother.

  In the evenings Jehane worked with Gael at her reading. Only Jehane and Prys Oghal and a weaver’s son they called Little Low could read. The Druda had a store of primer books on parchment and vellum, as well as slates and cakes of chalk, for the reading lessons. Gael worked hard, but her written script lagged behind the reading. Jehane praised her for knowing two languages already—Chyrian as well as the common speech, and swore that it would one day come in handy.

  The day soon came when they all set out from the Halfway House and rode down into the Eastern Rift, that long, fertile valley, and saw the manors of the Rift Lords and the thriving Rift villages. They rode as far as the eastern end of the valley to Cloudhill, the famous horse farm where Yorath Duaring and Knaar of Val’Nur had trained with Strett of Andine. Strett had been a man legendary in his own day for his honor, his generosity, his noblesse; overcoming the bastardy of his birth, he had built his holdings upon principle and virtue. His death at Silverlode had been a great tragedy for Mel’Nir and was still spoken of with sorrow in the Rift villages they passed through.

  In the village of Ochma, they met an old soldier, Captain Gorrie, who had served with the Red Hundreds of Ghanor the Great King and had survived both the eerie disaster of the Adderneck Pass and the betrayal at Silverlode before he had turned away from the King’s service. He recounted how he had pledged himself to the Free Company of Yorath Duaring, and his eyes shone when he spoke of this leader, so fresh were his memories. He shook his head and said, smiling, there was no one like him. No warrior so tall and bold, yes, but he had a noble heart as well and cared for his people.

  In this chance meeting Gael began to understand that the old days were not so long ago as she had believed them, that the ceaseless turn of seasons as she had understood them by the croft at Holywell was but a small drop in time, and that perhaps these men—the Druda, Gorrie, and even Knaar—were not so old, their youth not so far away. For a poor crofter’s girl in her seventeenth year, these thoughts were new, and she felt herself jealous for the first time of Jehane, who’d had a tutor for more than a hand of years now, besides having her father welcome Druda Strawn to dinner in their fine forest hall many a fair night. The Maddocs’ home—only on a feast day might their fare stretch so far as to include company.

  This resentment might have stayed but for Jehane’s kindness and light spirit, and also it was swept away by the larger ideas of Hylor’s varied and much-changing lands that were slowly coming to fill Gael’s waking thoughts.

  As the young troop rode back from Ochma through the rift along the eastern bank of the River Keddar, they passed the splendid old houses of the Rift Lords. There was Cannford Old House, where Strett of Cloudhill’s daughters had lived with their grandmother; there were Keddar Grove and Pauncehill. The Eastmark families were loyal to King Gol; the lands of Barkdon had been redistributed, but these, as Druda Strawn now pointed out, were the very families who were clamoring for a new Lord of the Eastmark to be set over them.

  The balance of the Marches was out of kilter; there was no Lord of the Eastmark to stand in council where the Marchers met. The Rift Lords desired to see the Eastmark’s honor restored by Gol’s appointing one lord its master. Indeed, one lord had begun to rise above others, and that was Degan of Keddar, a Rift Lord with many holdings. He had survived the Silverlode massacre, aged twelve years, the page of Strett of Cloudhill. Keddar had married one of Strett’s daughters, Perrine—the elder daughter, Annhad, was wed to the Lord of Pfolben, ruler of the Southland. Old Strett’s memory was so highly regarded, Keddar’s marriage had already in some way set him on a level with Pfolben. “But we shall see,” said the Druda. “We shall see. Our king is aged and tired, and Mel’Nir yet remains sadly full of tension. We can hope for a new Lord of the Eastmark before the kingly throne changes hands, but perhaps Gol will want to leave that for his heir.”

  By the Druda’s expression Gael could tell that he hoped the king would act.

  The young men went off to explore a village with a summer fair but Jehane and Gael rode up and stood before Cannford Old House. It was fine to see, with old trees and a white road winding through an avenue. One sister, Pearl of Andine, the youngest and some said the most beautiful of Strett’s daughters, yet remained. She had never married, and the great house was, of all things, a school for young women of noble birth.

  “You will go in?” asked Gael, as Jehane rode boldly to the gatehouse.

  “Duty call!” smiled Jehane. “My granddam knows the Lady Pearl—we’ll get a look at the house!”

  There was a sturdy old woman in the gatehouse who let them in, spoke reverently of Fion Allrada, Jehane’s grandmother, and inquired about their training on the High Ground. They rode on up the avenue through the quiet afternoon and came to the front of Cannford Old House, facing eastward. The house was of wood and grey stone with some newly glazed windows among the narrower orioles of a former time. It was a house of women: two young girls took their horses. As they mounted the steps, the paneled wooden doors swung inward without a sound and they went into a cool, high-roofed hall.

  A woman received them there and then turned toward the staircase, where a lady was descending. She was above the middle height and beautiful, with fine, even features, a radiant fairness, her thick blonde hair glowing in its silver snood. This quality, of giving off her own light, from her body, from the folds of her blue-grey gown, told Gael of magic.

  “Jehane!” said Pearl of Andine, “Welcome to Cannford! I hope your grandmother is well?”

  “Very well, my lady,” replied Jehane.

  She stepped up and exchanged a formal kiss on the cheek with the chatelaine of Cannford and then presented her companion. Gael gave a salute, and she saw that Lady Pearl had hazel eyes, very keen and sharp.

  The woman who had greeted them in the hall held open a door and the lady led them into a pleasant bower, not so striking and grand as the private hearth in Hackestell Fortress, but more comfortable. They sat on a padded settle and Lady Pearl heard of their training on the High Ground and of their pilgrimage to Silverlode, where her noble father had met his death. She turned to a tall press, with a display of miniature portraits in silver frames, upon a wooden stand. There was Thilka of Andine and Jared Strett of Cloudhill; there were their three daughters, Annhad, Perrine, and Pearl. Gael found these portraits marvelous things, so fine it was difficult to think of an artist who could do such work. The painter, she was told, was Emyas Bill, a great artist from Lien who now lived in Achamar, the capital city, if so it could be called, of the wild Chameln.

  Then the old woman brought lemon cordial to drink and fresh applecake. Presently the Lady Pearl reached for certain objects that stood beside a vase of roses on the table before them.


  “You are blessed,” she said crisply, with an unexpected change of manner. “I will give you each a reading!”

  She swung back the domed lid of a black wooden box and revealed a smooth shining ball of glass, giving off rays of colored light, its own rainbows. Then she had in her hand, from a small woven basket, flat numbered sticks that Gael knew as runesticks. She did not know how to behave during fortune-telling but Jehane and the lady showed her kindly. Both girls scattered the sticks, and this showed who would go first—while Jehane had her reading, Gael was sent out onto the garden terrace and sat looking out into the orchard.

  She saw a band of young girls, some of them children, picking fruit, romping and hiding among the trees. She saw and wondered at the southern wall of the rift, hundreds of feet high and striated with colored layers of earth, some where plants grew, some of bare rock. Presently it was her turn to go in and hear her own reading while Jehane wandered away into the interior of the great house.

  The Lady Pearl stared at her with a keen interest and reached across the table to take Gael’s hands in her own. She peered into them, made a sharp intake of breath and bit her lip. Then she gazed into the crystal ball, smiling a thin nervous smile.

  “From the Holywell outside little Coombe …” she murmured, “and you chose the kedran life of your own free will?”

  “Yes indeed!” said Gael, surprised. “I—I believe I have a calling …”

  “More than that, child,” said the lady. “Perhaps you are surprised that I have heard of your family’s little well, even across this side of the High Plateau—but that Well is an ancient place, and the Goddess has long blessed it.”

  Gael thought of the rocky fields where her father bent his back in labor, and she withheld her own thin smile, but the lady was speaking in all seriousness, overriding her doubts. “You are people of the Cup,” she said. “Yet you, Gael Maddoc, have chosen the way of the Lance. This is a greater departure than you yet have realized.”

  Gael could only stare, remembering the parchment she had deciphered with the Druda’s help, her father’s reluctance to allow her to follow the Druda’s plan that she should go for a kedran. “There is no cup at the croft now,” she said shyly. “We are humble people. Folk do not come so often to the Well—”

  Pearl of Andine interrupted, her gaze fixed within the glass ball. “Gael Maddoc,” she said, “a great destiny lies before you. You will travel in many lands and know men and women of every degree. Mark well these words: I see a frightened boy, splashed by water from your own hands; you are beside him. When he looks at you, you both smile. I see a tall man, reading in a book, his pen held in readiness. O the Lance! The Krac’Duar! I see the Lance! And yes, I see a woman, an old woman sitting before a mirror—Goddess—I know her! Yet I must not speak her name.” She broke free of the glass then and turned to Gael, a little distracted, throwing a velvet cloth to cover the glass ball.

  Again she took Gael’s hands. “Do not tell anyone of my reading here today. What are your plans after this training with Druda Strawn?”

  “The Plantation …” Gael said. “To serve with the Westlings!”

  Pearl of Andine shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “Your training will be completed elsewhere. You will not go on to serve Knaar of Val’Nur.”

  Gael could not help herself—she touched the lady’s skirts—could Lady Pearl tell her nothing more? The lady sighed, briefly covering Gael’s fingers with her own. “You may go so far as to ask the Druda this: make him tell you the history of the Krac’Duar. I cannot tell you further, and you must not press me.”

  The reading was complete. Lady Pearl put away her aids; at the last, she reached into a drawer, under the tablecloth. She brought out a pendant on a silver chain; it was shaped like a lily flower, in white and green, with a tiny pearl in the flower’s center.

  “Wear this!” she said. “It will protect you, Gael Maddoc. Till we meet again!”

  As they rode away from Cannford Old House, Jehane gave a mysterious smile.

  “Well,” she said, “did you get a fine fortune?”

  “More than I expected,” said Gael, wondering what Jehane had been told. “But we must not breathe a word—even to each other!”

  “All fortunes end that way …” laughed Jehane. “Look, there are those wretched boys coming back from the village!”

  The summer exercises were nearly done. The Druda rode out as far as Goldgrave, a thriving town on the plateau, growing into a city. He took the two kedran recruits, along with Prys Oghal and the Naylor twins. It was a reward for good work, and certainly Gael’s head was full of words and sounds. She could read at last.

  Goldgrave was a fine place, where they stayed at an inn; there were market stalls on the town square, and she spent three of Hem Duro’s silver shields to buy presents for the Winter Feast It was the first money she had ever had to spend in her life.

  She found a fine set of battle figures for her father and a shawl for her mother and a pair of leather gloves for Bress and sweetmeats for all the family and a little book bound in purple leather for Druda Strawn—a book of Chyrian Tales written on vellum in the common speech. She saw a whole stall full of “Emyan Ware,” cheap but still attractive pictures in the style of the miniatures done by the great Lienish artist. She bought a picture of a tree, decorated for the Winter Feast, with two children dancing—perhaps they were Gael and her brother Bress.

  On the third day they rode out beyond Goldgrave to the northwest. In a bleak landscape, amidst a few ancient ruins of stone, the Druda made a summoning, and there before them stood a mighty gate, with pillars, in the wilderness, slowly fading from their sight. Gael wanted then to ask him of the Krac’Duar, but there was no chance, no privacy. In respect to the Lady Pearl’s wishes, she held her tongue and waited. They rode back through mist and rain to rejoin the others at the Halfway House: summer was at an end.

  Gael Maddoc was sad to see the last of the training ride, and for reasons she would hardly admit to herself. Yes, indeed, she would miss the companionship of Jehane and the others. But not in the same way that Jehane would miss her meetings with the handsome Egon Baran—she wondered if there had been talk of this romance in her friend’s fortune. What cast down Gael was the fact that she must give up her horse, the good mare Ivy of whom she had grown very fond. Where would she find another mount, even for practice? Was she truly destined to serve elsewhere—not in Krail, not with the Westlings?

  Yet the season carried her along, back at the Holywell croft, getting in the firewood and the winter feed for the goats. There was the Harvest Festival in the sacred grotto, and she saw Jehane again and her granddam. She was bidden to ride down to the Forest House before the winter came, and she knew this must be the time to bring Ivy home again. The storms of autumn held off a little in that year, so she was able to give Bress a few rides on the mare.

  Gael rode round the hill and down to Ardven House, the ruined mansion by the Cresset Burn, to see Old Murrin. She sat with the old woman, who was sturdy despite her old battle wounds, and white-haired; in the lower floor of her house, they sat and talked of the kedran life. Emeris Murrin heard every detail of the strange episode with the two assassins who attacked Knaar of Val’Nur and of the enquiry that followed. Gael even went so far as to tell this veteran one part of her fortune—that it had been said she might not serve in Val’Nur. Besides all this, Old Murrin told Gael many things she had not before know of Balbank—now called King’s Bank, taken as it had been under Lien’s rule, though many of the Melniros had stayed on there. The old kedran’s older brother, who owned Ardven still, had his home there, along with the greater part of the Murrins’ land holdings. Perhaps it was such ties as these that had Knaar of Val’Nur and his sons so wary of Lien’s influence—though Gael did not see that Old Murrin held any deep fondness for her brother or his loyalties to his new liege master, Lien’s King Kelen.

  Gael did not hint anything of this to Druda Strawn—he paid his dut
y call early that year because he was bound on a winter pilgrimage to ancient Tuana, the true capital of the Chyrian folk of the western coast. He brought his presents for the feast and the gifts of food, along with the wool for spinning that he carried to all the poorest crofters.

  This time he brought reading exercises and a parchment sheaf with a tale of battles and magic for Gael to work at through the winter. Yes, indeed, she could make a start with Bress—it was never too soon to learn the letters and the runes. Here was a whole pot of good black ink and a bunch of wooden pens so that she might work on her practice scroll.

  Before he left, she managed to take him aside and ask him of the Krac’Duar. He went still at her question; for a time she was afraid he would not answer.

  “It is the Lance of Mel’Nir’s Kings,” he said at last. “It was lost in the days of Ankar Duaring, the Wizard-King—old Ghanor’s sire. When Ghanor took the throne, he forbid the naming of the Lance throughout all Mel’Nir’s holdings—this was years even before one so old as I was born, my child. It is a sacred object. Some would hold that its loss drove old Ghanor to madness, that Gol cannot chose a true heir to Mel’Nir from among his kin without its blessing—which is perhaps why all have been forbidden to speak of these matters. How did you come to hear this name, this sacred word?”

  “I cannot tell you,” she whispered, almost sinking down, for she had never before stood against Druda Strawn in anything, let alone a matter of such weight.

  She did not know whether to feel disappointed or relieved when the Druda accepted this answer.

  In the very last days of autumn Gael saddled Ivy for the last time, rode down into the forest manor of Veyna, and came to the tall Forest House.

  She was made welcome by Jehane and all her family—they had the common touch, she could see that. But the difference in the fortunes of the two kedran weighed upon Gael secretly. She hoped she managed not to show it. After three days, with the weather still holding, she set out again with many promises for next spring. She walked up to Coombe village carrying her saddlebag and using her ash staff to help her along the way.