Deverry - A Time Of War Part 1

A TIME OF WAR.

KATHARINE KERR.

THE WESTLANDS.

Summer, 1116 RUBEUS.

Of all the figures that give us omens in the element of Earth, this be the most dangerous and dissolute, unless it pertain, thanks to the overall reading of the map, to days of blood and fire. And should it fall into the House of Iron, then the loremaster must destroy the map immediately, proceeding no farther, for naught good will come of peering into such a future.

The Omenbook ofGwam, Loremaster

PART ONE.

Puer

Unless this figure fall into the House of Bronze, that is to say, the seventh country on our map, or into the House of Gold, the fifth country where dwell art and song, then it be ill-omened, bringing dissension, injury, and the l.u.s.t for revenge.

The Omenbook ofGwam, Loremaster

Round Cerr Cawnen the meadows lay marshy, crossed by a thousand streams, most no more than rivulets, and dotted with pools and hogs. With his face and hands lard-smeared to Keep the blackflies from biting, Jahdo picked his way through the high gra.s.s to hunt for brooklime and colt's foot. To the north the mountains that the dwarven folk call the Roof of the World towered out of blue mist, their peaks shining white in the summer sun. To the south the rolling meadows spread out into farmland, dotted with trees, and here and there a plume of smoke from a farm wife's kitchen rose like a feather on the sky.

In his pure boy's tenor Jahdo sang aloud, swinging his wicker basket in time to the song. He was so entranced with this wide view, in fact, that he stumbled, stepping out into empty air and falling with a yelp some four feet down into a gully carved by a stream.

He landed on soft gra.s.s and marshy ground, but the basket went flying, hitting the water with a plop and floating away. He scrambled up, decided that the sandy stream bed offered the best footing, and splashed after the basket as it rounded a turn and sailed out of sight. Jahdo broke into a shuffling sort of trot, keeping his feet under the knee-high water, travelling, quite inadvertently, in near silence, hidden by the banks of the deepening stream. At another twist in the watercourse, he caught his runaway basket, which had beached itself onto a strip of sh.o.r.e at an eddy. When he picked it up, something shiny caught his eye, a little disk of metal, pierced and hanging from a leather thong. He grabbed it, hoping for a dropped coin, but the thing was only pewter, engraved with a strange squiggle. He slipped it into his pocket anyway, stood for a moment panting for breath, and realized that he heard voices Just ahead the leafy shadows of trees danced on the water. Up on the banks stood a copse, where a man and a woman talked on the edge of anger, though they kept their voices down so low that Jahdo could guess they met in secret. He began backing away, slipped, and fell with a splash and a curse, 'Here!' the woman shrilled 'A spy!'

'I be no such thing, good lady.' In a wail of protest Jahdo clambered up. 'Don't hurt me.'

Tall, blond, with ice-blue eyes as cold as the northern peaks, a young man jumped down onto the sandy strip of sh.o.r.e bordering the stream, grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the water. When he recognized Verrarc, a member of the Council of Five that ruled the city, Jahdo began to stammer apologies. Verrarc grabbed him by both shoulders and shook him hard, 'What are you doing here?'

'Gathering herbs, sir. My sister she be ill. Gwira the herbwoman said she'd treat her, but it was needful for me to go and do some gathering. To give her due fee, I mean.'

Verrarc threw him to his knees. As he looked up at the tall, hard-muscled man towering over him, Jahdo felt the world turn all swimmy. Verrarc's blue stare cut into his soul like the thrust of a knife.

'He does tell the truth.' Verrarc's voice seemed to come from far away.

'That's of no moment. Kill him.' The woman's voice hissed and cracked. 'We mayn't risk - kill him, Verro!'

Jahdo whimpered and flung up his hands, half-warding a blow, half-begging for his life. When he tried to speak, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he gasped for breath. Verrarc laid on^ hand on the jewelled hilt of the sword slung at his hip, then considered him for an achingly long moment. His stare seemed normal again, merely the look of an angry man, not some strange ensorcelment.

'I know you. You be the rat boy.'

'I am, sir.' He found his voice at last, but in his terror he could only whisper. 'Jahdo Ratter.'

'Kill him now.'Wrapped in a black cloak with the hood well up, the woman crouched on the edge of the gully.

'Hold your tongue, Rae!' Verrarc snapped. 'I'll not be hurting the boy. He's but ten summers old, and no threat.'

'Verro!' Her voice, this time, whined, as petulant as a toddler. 'Kill him. I want to watch.'

'Hold your tongue! He be valuable, this lad, and besides, the herb-woman does know he's out here.'

With a snarl she sat back on her heels. All Jahdo could see of her were grey eyes and pale cheeks, streaked with sweat. No doubt she found the black cloak a burden on such a sunny day. Verrarc ignored her, slipped one arm around Jahdo's shoulders, and turned him round.

'Look, lad, as one man to another, I ask you: are you really going to be telling anyone about what you did see here today?'

All of a sudden Jahdo understood, a love affair.

'Of course not, sir. It be none of my business, bain't?'

Verrarc winked and grinned.

'Not in the least, lad, not in the least. And don't you go worrying. No harm will come to you, as long as you hold your tongue.'

'Thank you, sir, oh, a thousand thanks. I'll never say naught, I swear it. And I'll gather my herbs somewhere far away, too.'

Verrarc looked deep into his eyes and smiled. It seemed that his blue eyes turned to water, that his gaze flowed over the boy like warm water.

'Good. Good lad. Now, just trot back down along the stream, like, and go on your way.'

Jahdo followed orders, running as fast he dared, never looking back until he was a good mile away. He climbed out of the gully and stood for a moment, shaking his head. Something odd had happened, down there by the water. Or had he fallen asleep and dreamt it? He'd seen something, someone - Councilman Verrarc and a lady, and they were sneaking out behind her husband's back, and he'd sworn to speak not a word of it. Fair enough, and he'd certainly keep his promise, especially since he wasn't even sure if it were true or just a dream, or even a rumour. The city was full of rumours, after all. Maybe he hadn't seen a thing. He was sure, as he thought about it, that he'd seen no one but Verrarc, sitting by a stream.

By the time he'd filled the damp basket with herbs, he'd forgotten the councilman's name, and by the time he was heading home, all he retained was a sense of fear, linked to the gra.s.sy bank of some stream or other. A snake, perhaps, had startled him; dimly he could remember a sound much like the hiss of a snake.

Although there were a scattering of villages farther west, Cerr Cawnen was the only town worthy of the name in that part of the world, the Rhiddaer (the Freeland), as it was known. In the midst of water meadows lay Loc Vaed, stretching in long green shallows out to blue deeper water and a rocky central island, the Citadel, where stood the fine homes of the best families and, at the very peak, the armoury of the citizen militia. The rest of the town crammed into the shallows: a jumble and welter of houses and shops all perched on pilings or crannogs, joined by little bridges to one another in the rough equivalent of city blocks, which in turn bristled with jetties and rickety stairs leading down to the stretches of open water between them, where leather coracles bobbed on ropes. Toward the edge of town, where the lake rippled over sandy reefs, big logs, sawn in half and sunk on end, studded the surface of the water and served as stepping-stones between the huts and islets. On the lake sh.o.r.e proper, where the ground was reasonably solid, stood a high timber-laced stone wall, ringing the entire lake round. Guards stood on constant duty at the gate and prowled the catwalk above, turning the entire town and lake both into an armed camp. The forty thousand folk of Ccrr Cawnen had more than one enemy to fear.

It was late in the day by the time Jahdo trotted through the gates to the stretch of gra.s.s that ringed the sh.o.r.e, and he knew he'd best hurry. Not only did the memory of his fear still trouble him, but he was worried about his elder sister, who'd woken that morning doubled over with pain. Clutching his basket tight, he jumped his way across the shallows from log to log, then elimbed some stairs up to a block of buildings, all roofed with living sod or vegetable gardens. Most of the stilt-houses had wide wooden decks round them, and he leapt or clambered from one to another, dodging dogs and goats and small children, ducking under wet laundry hung to dry, calling out a pleasant word here or there to a woman grinding grain in a quern or a man fishing from a window of his house. At the edge of the deeper water he climbed down and helped himself to a coracle tied to a piling. These little round boats were common property, used as needed, left for the next person wherever one landed them. With his basket settled between his knees, Jahdo rowed out to Citadel.

Normally, poor folk like him and his family never lived on the central island, but his clan had occupied two big rooms attached to the town granaries for over a hundred years, ever since the Town Council had chartered the lodgings to them - on condition, of course, that they 'did work most diligently and with all care and patience both of man and weasel' to keep down the swarms of rats in the granary. Everyone knew that rodents were dangerous enemies, spreading filth and fleas, befouling much more food than they outright ate. To earn their food, clothing, and other necessities, the Ratters, as their family came to be known, also took their ferrets round from house to house all over town. Wearing little muzzles to keep them from making kills, the ferrets chased the vermin out through holes in the walls, where the family caught the rats in wicker cages and drowned them and their fleas both in the lake - not the most pleasant of jobs, but growing up with it made it tolerable.

The squat stone buildings of the public granaries clung to a cliff low down on the citadel island. Getting to the Ratters' quarters required some of a ferret's agility: first you climbed up a wooden ladder, then squeezed yourself between two walls and inched along until you made a very sharp turn right into the doorway. When Jahdo came into the big square chamber that served as kitchen, common room, and bedchamber for his parents, he found white-haired Gwira, the herb-woman, brewing herb water in an iron kettle at the hearth. The spicy scent, tinged with resin, hung in the room and mingled with the musky stink of feircts.

'Where's Mam, Gwira?' Jahdo said.

'Out with your Da and the weasels. They'll be back well before dark, she told me. Don't know where Kiel's gone to.'

Dead-pale but smiling, his elder sister, lanky dark-haired Niffa, was sitting at the rickety plank table nearby and drinking from a wooden bowl. Although she glanced his way, her enormous dark eyes seemed focused on some wider, distant view. A dreamy child, people called her, and at root, very strange. Jahdo merely thought of her as irritating.

'You be well?'

'I am, at that.' Niffa blushed as red as the coals. 'I never were truly ill.'

When Jahdo stared in puzzlement, Gwira laughed.

'Your sister be a woman now, young Jahdo, and that's all you need to know about it. It's needful for us to set about finding her a husband soon.'

Vague boyish rumours of blood and the phases of the moon made Jahdo blush as hard as his sister. He slung the basket onto the table and ran into the bedchamber. At one end of the narrow room lay the jumble of blankets and straw mattresses that he, his elder brother, and his sister slept upon, while at the other stood the maze of wooden pens, strewn with more of the same straw, where the ferrets lived. Since his parents were out hunting, only one ferret, a pregnant female, was at home and surprisingly enough awake in the daytime, scooting on her bottom across the straw as if she'd just relieved herself. Jahdo leaned over her slab-sided pen, built high enough to keep the other ferrets out and away from her tangled ball of a nest, all heaped up straw and sc.r.a.ps of cloth. Tck-tek deigned to allow him to stroke her soft fur, then reached out her front paws in a long stretch, casually swiping her bottom across his fingers to mark him as hers.

'Oh ych, Tek!' Jahdo wiped his hand on his trousers, then remembered the pewter trinket in his pocket.

'Here's somewhat for your h.o.a.rd.'

When he dropped the disk in, she sniffed it, then hooked the thong with her fangs and, head held high to drag her prize, waddled back to her nest and tucked it safely away. Some ferrets were worse than magpies, stealing shiny things to wad up with rags and bits of old leather into a treasure-ball. They liked socks, too, and stole belt buckles if you didn't watch them, dragging them belt and all into their nests.

As promised, his parents came home not long after, bent under their burdens of caged ferrets and damp traps. Dark-haired Lael, going grey in his beard and moustaches, was a tall man, built like a blacksmith, or so everyone said, while blonde Dera was a mere wisp of a woman even now, after she'd borne three healthy children and two that had died in infancy. Yet somehow, when she got in one of her rages, no one thought of her as slight or frail, and her blue eyes always snapped with some new pa.s.sion or other.

'Back, are you?' Lael said with a nod at Jahdo. 'Help me with the weasels.'

They carried the cages into the bedroom and opened them one at a time, grabbing each ferret and slipping off its tiny leather hood. As much as they hated the hoods, the ferrets always seemed to hate having them off even more, twisting round and grunting in your lap. For creatures that weighed no more than five pounds at the absolute most, they could be surprisingly strong. Jahdo got the first pair unhooded easily enough, but their biggest hob, Ambo, was always a battle, a frantic wiggle of pushing paws.

'Now hold still!' Jahdo snapped. 'I do know you do hate it, but there's naught I can do about it! Here, just let me get the knot undone. It's needful for you to wear them, you know. What if you ate a big meal and then fell asleep in the walls? We'd never get you back, and you'd get eaten yourself by one of the dog packs or suchlike. Now hold still! There! Ye G.o.ds!'

Free at last Ambo shook his sable length and chittered, pausing to rub himself on Jahdo's arm, all affection now that his work day was over. He backed up for a running start, then leapt and pranced, jigging round Jahdo's ankles. When the boy could finally catch him, he dumped Ambo into the common pen, where the ferret began rummaging round in the straw on some weaselly concern. Dera came in with clean water in a big pottery dish and a wooden bowl of sc.r.a.ps of jerky. She set them down inside the common pen, then laid down some fine chopped meat for Tek-tek.

'Food for you later,' she announced to Jahdo.

'Is Gwira still here, Mam?'

'She is. Why? Don't you feel well?'

'Naught like that. I just did wonder.'

'Well, then, don't stand in the straw like a lump! Come out and see for yourself.'

Jahdo followed her out to find his elder brother home, sitting at the far end of the big table and sharing a tankard of beer with Lael. The eldest of the three and almost a man, really, Kiel was a handsome boy, with yellow hair like their mother's, and almost as tall as their father, but slender, with unusually long and delicate fingers as well. At the nearer end of the table, the herbwoman stood, picking over the herbs Jahdo had brought back.

'Be those herbs good?' he asked.

'Perfectly fine, indeed,' Gwira said.

The herbwoman stayed to dinner that night, sitting down at the end of the table next to Dera and across from Niffa, where they could all gossip over their sauced pork and bread about possible husbands, while Lael mostly listened, voicing only the occasional concerned opinion about one suitor or another. Kiel and Jahdo pretended indifference, but at the same time, they said not one word to each other, either, lest they miss something. As the second oldest person in Cerr Cawnen, Gwira knew a good bit about most everyone, 'Well now, with your pretty face,' the old woman said at last, 'you might nock an arrow for high-flying game, young Niffa. Councilman Verrarc's been known to stop by here for a word or two on occasion.'

'He does come to see Mam, and I'd not be marrying him if he were the last man left alive under the moon.'

Although Niffa spoke quietly, cold steel rang in her voice.

'I doubt me if he'd marry a ratter, love.' Dera broke in. 'So don't you worry.'

'Beauty's bettered a la.s.s's fortune before this.' Gwira paused to hack a bit of gristle with her table dagger. 'Why do you hold him in disdain, la.s.s?'

'He's like reaching into a pond and touching a big old slimy newt. I hate him.'

Dera and Lael both raised an eyebrow at this outburst. Niffa buried her nose in her cup of watered ale.

'Well, there was that scandal.' Gwira said. 'Him and that Raena woman, the chief speaker's wife from over in Penli.'

'That near cost us the alliance, it did,' Lad said. 'A lot of us might not vote for the young cub again, I tell you, after that botch.'

'Worse for her, it were,' Gwira broke in. 'Her husband did put her aside, didn't he? Who knows what happened to the poor woman after that?'

'If the young cub did want her as much as all that,' Lael growled, 'he might have married her decently when he had the chance.'

'I hear Raena did go back to her people in the north in shame.' Dera turned thoughtful. 'But I don't know. It takes two to twist a rope, I always say, and there was somewhat about that woman I never did like. I doubt me if she were but an innocent little chick to Verro's fox, like.'

'Um, well, mayhap.' Gwira pursed her lips. 'Our Niffa might not be able to do better when it come to coin and calling, but there's no doubt about it, she can do much better when it come to character. I'll be putting some thought into this, over the next few days, like.'

'Think of Demet,' Niffa mumbled. 'The weaver's second son.'

Everyone laughed, relaxing. Gwira nodded slowly.

'Not a bad choice he'd be. Good steady man, his father, and prosperous, too.'

Jahdo laid his spoon down in his bowl. All this talk of Councilman Verrarc had made him feel sick to his stomach, and cold all over, as well. He should tell Gwira how he felt, he knew, should tell her about - about what? There was some incident he wanted to tell her, just because she was old and wiser than anyone else in town. Something about some event out in the meadow. Hadn't something scary happened? Yet he couldn't quite remember what it was, and the moment pa.s.sed beyond returning.

Yet, not two days later, the boy recovered a brief glimmering of the memory, though not enough to save him. Early on that particular morning, Dera sent Jahdo over to town to claim some eggs and meat that one of the townsfolk owed them.

'Your Da be across, too, love,' she said. 'See if you can find him when you're done.'

Jahdo had rowed about halfway across the lake, his back turned to his destination, of course, when he saw the ceremonial barge pushing off from Citadel and heading his way. With a few quick strokes he moved off its course and rested at his oars while the squat barge slipped past, painted all silver and red, riding low in the water. In the middle stood a false mast to display the yellow and green banners of Cerr Cawnen, which hung lazily in the warm summer air. At the bow cl.u.s.tered a group of men in rich clothing, embroidered linen shirts belted over knee-length trousers, the common style in this part of the world, with short cloaks thrown back from their shoulders. Jewels and gold winked in the rising sun.

As the barge slid past, Jahdo saw Councilman Verrarc standing at the rail. His heart thudded once as the councilman looked his way. Since only some fifteen feet separated them, Jahdo could cleaily see that Verrarc had noticed him, that the councilman frowned, too, and turned to keep him in view for a minute or two after the barge went past, Again Jahdo felt his mouth turn parched, and the sensation made him remember his meadow fear and the image of a woman, wrapped in black and hissing as she spoke. Yet all the boy knew was that in some obscure way Verrarc's image had sparked the memory. With a cold shudder he forced the recollection away and rowed on to town.

The family who owed them for the ratting, the Widow Suka and her son, had slaughtered a goat just the day before. Some hundred feet from the lake's edge, her house perched on a erannog piled up so many hundreds of years before that the construction had turned into a real island, with trees and topsoil of its own, a little garden, and a pen for goats, which, every day in summer, the widow's son rowed over to the mainland for the grazing. While she nestled eggs safely in the straw in Jahdo's basket and wrapped chunks of goat up in cabbage leaves, Jahdo strolled to the edge of the erannog and looked over to sh.o.r.e.

Down by the gates in the wall a crowd of people stood round, all staring toward the gate itself. Jahdo could just pick out the tall form of Councilman Verrarc toward the front of the mob.

'Now what's that?' Suka said. 'Looks like a merchant caravan's coming in.'

'It does, truly. Ooh, I wonder where they've been?'

'If you want to go see, lad, I'll keep the food here and cool for you.'

Leaving the boat behind, Jahdo made his way to sh.o.r.e on foot, hopping from log to log. He arrived at the edge of the crowd just as the gates swung wide and a line of men and mules began to file through.

Since he was the shortest person in the crowd, Jahdo couldn't see a thing. For a few minutes he trotted this way and that, hoping to find a way to squeeze through to the front, decided that he might as well give it up, then heard muttering and oaths from the front of the crowd. The press began to surge backwards, men swearing and stepping back fast though without turning to look where they were going. Jahdo tried to run, nearly fell, nearly panicked, and cried out.