Yorath the Wolf Read online

  He came forward swiftly and knelt down before me, where I sat by the hearth, and stared most earnestly into my face.

  “I will serve you,” he said. “I have bound myself to no man’s service until this hour. Now, be it known that I will serve Yorath and no other. My life is in his keeping. He will be a worthy master, and I will strive to be a worthy servant. I know he is a prince among men!”

  Then he bent his head to the floor at my feet. I was embarrassed and I was also moved by the man’s fervor. I turned my head and saw Caco and Hagnild both wearing expressions of shock and fear. I felt a stab of fear myself and covered it by raising the man up.

  “Do not bow before me,” I said. “Sit on the stool. Tell me your name.”

  “I will tell you my true name,” he said, “my ancient family name from the Burnt Lands. I will be Ibrim, your servant.”

  I looked back at my two beloved guardians, and the moment had passed. Caco busied herself at the hearth, Hagnild had a keen searching expression as if he would question this Ibrim. Perhaps I had imagined their distress.

  “Ibrim,” said Hagnild, “how can we trust you? You came to Nightwood as a hired swordsman to kill Strett of Cloudhill!”

  “The man who did that is dead,” said Ibrim. “He was a desperate man who lived by the sword. Now I am Ibrim, the servant of Yorath, and my sword will be used in his service.”

  Hagnild was about to speak again, but I put a hand on his arm.

  “I will accept his service,” I said.

  I held out my hand to Ibrim, and he clasped it, smiling at me but not in any servile fashion. To my surprise there was no argument from Hagnild. Caco reached Ibrim a cup of wine and a bowl of the meat and gravy we had had for supper; he sat by the fire quietly.

  Hagnild was preoccupied and not with the strange reappearance of Ibrim. He listened to the sounds of the night; then I heard it too . . . voices in the forest. Hagnild uttered one of his mild oaths and made the candles go out.

  “Riders!” he said.

  A horse whinnied, and Selmis, the pale mare, answered from her stall. I sprang to the window and peered through a star-shaped hole in the shutter. Hagnild flicked his fingers, muttering, and I saw the thickening of the wood around our house, as if the trees moved two steps closer.

  “Shall I go out?” asked Ibrim softly. “Is there a sword in the house?”

  “They will pass by,” said Hagnild.

  He rose to his feet; the fire burned a dull green and Hagnild himself glowed with the same fire as if his scholar’s robe was woven in shot silk and worked with emerald.

  “Armed men of the king,” he said, “pursuing a troop of Huarik’s followers. Perhaps it is a good time for Yorath to have a bodyguard, Master Ibrim.”

  This seemed to me, too, something of an admission. Presently we went off to sleep: Caco to her small room, Hagnild to his study. Ibrim lay down on the settle before the banked fire. I climbed the narrow stair to my low but spacious quarters under the thatched roof cone and fell asleep thinking of princes.

  The autumn became mild, its stormy breath was stilled. I went about Ibrim, showing him the ways of Nightwood and the marsh. Ibrim had made sure of two of the long, thin, curved blades used by his former comrades and also of his own dun-colored horse, left at the smithy. In the glade where I had played the strongman a year past with Pinga and Raff, he taught me to handle a sword. I made fair progress in this delicate art—of the thin blade, then Ibrim would stand apart and give instruction while I handled the broadsword. He was an excellent master-at-arms, demanding accuracy, timing and daily practice. He reminded me, as he sat in the grass, wrapped in his rust-colored cloak, head erect, eyes half-closed, watching me attack a fallen tree, of Hagnild, hearing my spelling. I was educated by pedants; I repaid their diligence.

  I remember a warm day in that “old wives’ summer” when Ibrim and I left the brown house together with Caco. She was off on a jaunt to the village of Beck with her crony Old Uraly, the reed-wife; it was market day. I meant to go fishing across the causeway in the southern channels of the marsh. We parted from the old woman at a place where the paths divided and went to the smithy to pick up some chicken giblets from Erda for our bait. We promised her any eels that we caught for her salting vats. The smith’s yard, which had always seemed to me, as a child, the busiest place in the world, was quieter these days. Finn’s two eldest, grown men now, were serving as army farriers in the Chameln lands; two of the girls had married and moved away to Lort; twin boys, older than Arn, had died of a fever when they were eight years old . . . I could hardly remember them . . . and now Arn had gone to Krail, to become a swordmaker.

  “See here, Yorath!” called Gradja.

  Finn was about to shoe a magnificent black horse, a tall, deep-chested war charger with its hooves plumed in rusty grey and a similar streaked mane and tail.

  “A prize,” he said. “Captured first by Huarik’s rascals somewhere down east then taken from them by the captain of the king’s new garrison at Beck. A ravaging bastard of an ensign brought him here yesternight. Ran him down the causeway with no decent shoes. Let’s hope the captain treats him better.”

  The big horse was well-mannered. Gradja held its head while it was shod; Till and Ofin worked the bellows. Finn hammered with ringing strokes upon his anvil. At last I took my leave and went across the causeway to fish, with Ibrim after me, my servant, my shadow. Far down the causeway between the tall reed beds I saw two reed bonnets: Caco and Uraly going to market. I did not plunge into the marsh but took a path that wandered through the reeds and the bearded swamp oaks beside the causeway.

  I have lived through this time over and over again, trying to untangle all the threads. There was the unusual warmth of the day, the pleasant, watery stink of the marsh; a crane flew up, legs dangling, and flapped away into the trees. I heard hoofbeats on the causeway and knew that there was more than one rider and that they were coming very fast. I went on without the least anxiety. Then I heard a hoarse shout, a clattering of hooves, a long, high scream, a woman’s scream.

  I plunged through a narrow channel of marsh water and pushed back on to the causeway through the reeds. Directly opposite stood Uraly the reed-wife shrieking aloud, and at her feet lay what looked like a bundle of brown rags. About fifty feet away were two horse troopers trying to control their chargers and a third rider, off to my right, nearer to Beck village. I ran across, flung myself down and saw Caco already dead. Her head was a bloody pulp, the iron mark of a horseshoe was across her forehead.

  “Ridden down,” croaked Uraly. “O my dear, O Goddess save us . . . they were racing . . .”

  She sat in the reeds and keened aloud. I saw that the troopers were riding back down the causeway to the scene of the accident. They looked at the ground; I heard one, the officer, in an ensign’s sash, exclaim, “There it lies!”

  I stood up and went back on to the causeway. I seemed to be moving very slowly and deliberately. I looked down and saw what it was the officer was seeking . . . his whip, his heavy riding quirt, that he had let fall. I picked it up and slipped the leather loop over my wrist. As I came close to the ensign I saw a curious expression on his broad fair face. He had not noticed me as I had run across to Caco, now I had risen out of the marsh.

  “You have killed the old woman!” I said.

  “My whip . . .”

  His voice came to me as if from a long way off.

  “You rode her down!” I said again.

  His eyes did not leave mine; he gestured to the trooper and I heard his tone, an officer’s voice, yet edged with fear. “Here’s trouble,” he seemed to say.

  “My purse is in my saddle-bag,” he said. “Let me . . .”

  The world became misty and blood-stained. I reached out, seized the officer, dragged him from his saddle, lifted him high in the air and flung him face downwards on the causeway. I beat in the back of his head with the heavy bronze-tipped handle of his own whip. His charger went wild and tangled the other horse, the troo
per’s horse. He was still trying to draw his sword when I reached him. I seized him by his sword arm and flung him as a hammer is thrown and heard the sound as he struck a stone marker on the roadside. I drew back and the two horses went bolting down towards the smithy; I did not see the third rider. I sat down on the ground not far from Caco’s body and smelled a terrible reek of blood.

  Ibrim was beside me. He held a leather bottle of fiery spirits to my lips and made me drink. I drank, choked, retched once or twice, then began to come to myself.

  “We have not much time,” he said. “Try to stand. Their groom has ridden back to Beck garrison.”

  “Caco . . .”

  Uraly, that true daughter of the marsh, was beside me now. She and Ibrim realised, as I had not, that I was in peril; my god-rage was irrevocable; my only hope was in flight.

  “Caco is with the Goddess,” said Uraly, wiping her eyes upon her shawl. “You were all her care, Yorath. Save yourself. Respect will be paid to Caco . . . she will sleep in the Deadmarsh.”

  Ibrim urged me a little way down the causeway, and suddenly we were among some folk coming from the smithy. Finn took me by the arms and shook the breath out of me.

  “Holy fire!” he said. “This cannot be undone. Gather your wits, boy . . . where can you go?”

  I gulped the air and deliberately took another sip of Ibrim’s spirits.

  “Hagnild’s house . . .” I said.

  “No,” said Finn, “I doubt it is safe even there.”

  “I will ride on to the plateau,” I said, “if a horse can be found for me. I will ride to Cloudhill, to Strett, the Bastard of Andine.”

  “That may serve,” he said. “We’ll tell the troopers a tale of maurauding brigands. I doubt they will get much sense out of the groom who rode back.”

  “I must go to the house . . . leave word . . . make up a pack . . .”

  “Quickly then,” said Finn. “Go with Ibrim, your man, to the house, then come back to the yard. Roke and I will have horse and arms ready.”

  As Ibrim and I turned to run off into the wood, Old Uraly came running up. She slipped a thong over my head; it was stained with blood and held a small leather pouch.

  “Caco’s amulet,” she said. “It will keep you free from harm.”

  I turned aside with a sob and ran through the wood with Ibrim at my heels. It was dreadful to be in the empty house again, to see Caco’s cooking pots, her new birch broom that I had cut for her, all the reminders of that poor old woman. I climbed the stairs, wrapped clothes, a book, a writing set; I came down again in a rush and went into Hagnild’s study. His presence lingered in the small room. His scrying stones were locked away but on the desk was a small skull, that of some long dead Kelshin that he had found in a barrow and used in his conjuring. I laid my hand on the smooth round and said in a low voice:

  “Master . . . Caco is dead. I have done murder to avenge her death. I am riding to Cloudhill.”

  I came out of the study and found Ibrim strapping my blankets into a decent roll. He had filled a reed sack with provisions. As we ran back to the smithy, I saw that the weather had begun to turn round: black storm clouds were rolling up from the west.

  When I came into the yard, I was seized and armed by Finn and Roke, grim-faced. They put me into a fine shirt of linkmail, a breastplate of black-painted strip mail, a mighty old-fashioned helm. Over all was a long black mantle trimmed with grey fur. They buckled on a sword belt with a dagger and slung a leather baldric across my body.

  “Now lad,” said Roke, “onto the block . . .”

  Gradja, the smith’s daughter, led out the magnificent black charger, newly shod, the prize horse that the dead ensign had brought to the forge for his captain. It had an old war saddle over dark green trappings. Finn and Roke had plundered the smith’s store of arms, many of them the unredeemed pledges of poor shieldmen or troopers. I mounted up, Finn adjusted the stirrups, Roke handed me a broadsword . . . I knew that it was the sword of the ensign. I sheathed the sword. I saw that the smith’s family had come out to gape at me, mounted upon the black steed, in my collection of armor.

  “Go then,” cried Finn, “ride out from Nightwood, Yorath. Remember your friends. The Goddess give you a soldier’s blessing!”

  I looked down, and in the water of the horse trough I saw something like Arn’s vision in the wishing pool. A mighty warrior in black armor mounted upon a black horse.

  “I will do you honor!” I said. “What is the horse called?”

  “The ensign called it a strange name,” said Finn. “Something like Rashidur . . .”

  Ibrim, mounted on his own wirey Kalkar and bearing arms from Finn’s store, laughed aloud.

  “Reshdar!” he cried.

  The great horse snorted and stamped, answering to its name. I rode away from Nightwood half-made, stained with blood, untried, with my wits still reeling. I led Ibrim quickly out of the marsh and to the crossroads by the dolmen. The thunderstorm that had come up broke over our heads and lightning struck the top of the tall grey stone, the godpillar. I drew rein and looked down the road that led to the Palace Fortress.

  No rider was to be seen and Ibrim made as if to ride on, but I bade him wait. I saw a patch of mist, a moving place where the rain seemed thick and grey, approaching down the road. We waited and Ibrim cried out. Hagnild appeared riding upon Selmis, the pale mare. In this guise, almost invisible, he often travelled between the palace and Nightwood.

  “So be it,” he said when he had heard my story. “Try not to grieve for the old woman. Your god-rage is spent . . . do not let it come again. Go to Cloudhill and tell the Bastard of Andine frankly what has happened here.”

  He handed me a purse of gold and raised a hand in blessing.

  “Watch over your young liege!” he said to Ibrim.

  He remained by the dolmen as we turned and took the road to the plateau: a thin-faced old man, his shock of hair snow white. When I turned one last time to look at him, he had gone; only a patch of grey mist remained.

  So I came from one magic realm to another, from Nightwood to the High Plateau of Mel’Nir, from the dark trees and the channels of the marsh to the arid wastes and fertile rift valleys, to the clear air and blazing stars. We rode on for three days and nights and saw no living soul and no spirits or demons in that uncanny place. The horse, Reshdar, was patient with me and bore my weight well, and I began to understand the attachment between horse and rider.

  On the second night of our journey as we sat by our campfire, I thought of Caco’s amulet. Inside the leather pouch was a small square of parchment folded so that it was not much bigger than my thumbnail. It was very old and waxy, as if it were folded round an ancient seal that had melted and gummed its folds together. I could read no words on the folds but thought of a written charm, perhaps some runes for good luck. I held the thing near the fire but I was afraid it would be damaged if I tried to melt away its wax or unfold it. It needed an expert . . . a scribe or one who restored old writings. So I put the amulet back in its pouch and continued to wear it, a last blessing from the old Lienish woman who had been mother and grandmother to me.

  At length we came to the Great Eastern Rift and asked the way to the Cloudhill Stud. The yard was deserted when we rode in except for one groom who ran into the broad low-roofed house of yellow stone below the watchtower. It was midmorning; between the loose boxes and the barns I could see the green fields and the horses in them. I had the feeling of being watched closely from the windows of the house, and I saw a soldier on the tower, armed with a crossbow. At last Strett himself came out and stood on his back step, arms akimbo.

  “By the Bear!” he said. “A mighty warrior indeed. Where in the name of the Goddess did you find Reshdar?”

  I felt a pang of despair to lose my charger so soon, but I told him what had happened.

  “And who rides with you?” asked the lord quietly.

  “It is my man Ibrim,” I said. “Once he bore another name and served other masters as a hir
ed blade. Since I saved his life in Nightwood by bringing him to a healer he has taken me for his liege. I will answer for him.”

  “Yorath,” said Strett, holding up a hand to his face, “you ask a great deal. I must hide a fugitive who rides on a horse stolen from me six moons past by Huarik’s raiders, and your servant is a brigand who tried to kill me!”

  “I will return the horse if I cannot buy him with my store of gold,” I said; “and if I may not stay I will go on with Ibrim, Lord Strett.”

  At that moment the lady of the house, Thilka, came out wearing a blue gown and a long dark apron. She burst out laughing, and Strett joined in.

  “Yorath!” she said. “Yorath, you are a sight for the gods. The helmet . . . the saddle . . . and Reshdar, our beautiful lost Reshdar!”

  “In truth, I would give all I have to keep him,” I said sadly.

  “Get down, boy,” said Strett wiping his eyes. “You’ll have your horse, but you will pay for him. Take that ridiculous collection of ancient harness off your back. I will put you and your servant to work.”

  So I entered the service of my first master, Strett of Cloudhill.

  II

  I have had the disturbing experience of meeting some of the chroniclers who wrote down and dreamed up my own life. One was Less, Brother Less, as he liked to be called, a dark bony fellow, born in the Chameln lands and educated in Lien. He had come exploring into Mel’Nir in search of a holy revelation, and when it eluded him, he worked as a scribe in Krail and in Lort. He came at last to work upon the Great Scrolls themselves, in the archives of the Great King. No one is supposed to know the names of the scribes who do this work; the scrolls must seem to be almost god-given. No one was more human than Brother Less. He ate and drank sparingly, did not fight, for he was puny, had neither love nor liking for women, mortified his flesh with cold baths and whipping and felt uncomfortable when listening to music. He could not grasp the fact that this sort of self-denial was very human—what beast, what fairy spirit would bother with such privations?—and he stoutly denied the notion that he lived his life at second hand in retelling the exploits of so-called heroes.