The Veil Of Years - Isle Beyond Time Part 7

"Row! Row!" she shouted. She felt the boat's surge as Yan Oors's pole found purchase in the channel bed, and they glided beneath the bridge . . . A black lump tumbled downward, and fell with a huge splash, just aft. Pierrette's steering oar leaped from her hands, splintered and broken, and the wave from the fallen masonry inundated her.

When she wiped her eyes, the bridge was behind. But their troubles were not over. The shouting had roused others, ash.o.r.e where the dark hulls of uncountable long, narrow vessels were drawn up side by side. Dozens of men swarmed over the boats, and struggled to pull them free of the bank. Pierrette heard the rattle and thump of a score of heavy oars being run out, and then the clap of a tambour, establishing the stroke.

There were no islands to hide among, only the broad, open river. The bridge was now a mile behind, the fire-glow from the town imperceptible. Only the distant, rhythmic drumming indicated they were still being pursued. The splintered shaft of the steering oar dragged in its lashings. Water gleamed and swirled around the baggage amidships. Gustave the donkey snorted uneasily as it chilled his fetlocks. . . .

"We're sinking!" Pierrette cried. "Gregorius, pull harder. Lovi! Slack your oar." She could no longer steer from the helm, but it might still be possible to attain the low, reed-brushed sh.o.r.e. Ibn Saul grabbed their soil-bucket and bailed madly. It might slow their sinking by some imperceptible degree. It could not hurt to try.

Reeds squealed alongside and impeded the oars. Yan Oors continued to push them ahead, finding purchase for his pole somewhere beneath the riverbottom muck. Isolated reeds became clumps and hummocks, and they glided among them. Then, with a soft lurch, they came to a halt. The boat's wales were almost awash, and their baggage b.u.mped and floated about. "Take what you can carry," Pierrette hissed. She helped Master ibn Saul sling Gustave's panniers and then dived beneath the murk to fasten his belly strap. Gustave, for once, did not suck in breath to keep the strap loose, but allowed her to draw it tight on the first try.

The rap of the Viking c.o.xwain's tambour maintained the oarsmen's strokes. The only other sound was the faint swish of water as they slipped out of the boat, and pushed waist-deep through the reeds. Yan Oors took the lead, probing with his iron staff for a solid path. Angry cries arose behind-the Nors.e.m.e.n had found their empty boat. They heard the sounds of breaking wood-their baggage being broken open, or the boat being stove in, eliminating any hope of returning, repairing it, and continuing to the sea, now only a scant ten miles further on. "It's just as well," said ibn Saul, good-natured because he had managed to save his precious instruments, and had had the foresight to wrap his codices in oiled cloth and leather. "Considering the state of the towns along the river, I doubt the Nors.e.m.e.n left any villages near its mouth unscathed, or any oceangoing boats uncaptured. When we find dry ground, we must head north into the forest. If my sightings of last night's stars were correct, we may find succor there with your master Anselm's old friend, the Magister Moridunnon."

Pierrette was both excited and uneasy about that prospect. Of course ibn Saul did not know everything about Moridunnon-that he was, or had been, a most powerful druid, a sorcerer and aguatatros , a speaker with the ancient Gaulish G.o.ds. He did not know, as did Pierrette, that Moridunnon was almost as old as Anselm himself was, and had been an adviser to kings now centuries in their moldy graves. What he did not know, he could not write about. It was imperative that, if they did locate the ancient sorcerer, Pierrette should speak to him first, and warn him not to reveal himself to ibn Saul.

"We should wend a bit westward as we go north," she said. "I'm sure we'll have an easier time of it."

"Why so?" asked the scholar. "This forest country all looks much the same to me."

"Anselm said the best route was directly north of the Liger's mouth. We are near enough to that."

"I'll determine our position tomorrow, at noon. Then we shall see."

Pierrette knew enough of the scholar's methods to know that his instruments could only determine which way was north, and how far north they were. Only the ancient Sea Kings of Thera had known how to measure westering, and thus to make maps as accurate as the one she kept safe and dry, rolled up in her meager bundle of clothing.

They soon found high ground, and followed a sluggish stream until they attained a gra.s.sy clearing. There they made simple beds and wrapped themselves in whatever clothing they had managed to bring away with them. Pierrette's woolensagus was almost as warm wet as dry, and she would sleep well, as would Lovi and Gregorius, who shared the priest's cloak. Yan Oors went off by himself-perhaps, indeed, he did not sleep. But Pierrette could not sleep, listening to the sound of ibn Saul's chattering teeth. He had not salvaged a cloak from the boat, and his once-fine raiment gave little comfort in the damp chill of the night. Pierrette got up, wrapped her own cloak around his shoulders, then snapped dry twigs from low pine branches to start a fire.

"I hope you have tinder," said the scholar. "Mine was ruined, and my flint seems to be missing as well."

"The inner bark on these twigs is powdery dry," she replied. "I think it will suffice." She laid her small handful of twigs like a tiny round hut, and surrounded it with larger ones, then spanned those with others, close together over the tinder heap but with enough s.p.a.ce between for flames to have a free path upward. Then, placing herself between the unlit fire and the scholar, she whispered her spell.

The glow at her fingertips was no clear, Christian light, nor was it the warm, yellow glow she expected; it was sultry and red, a dull, angry flicker. Uneasily, she touched her fingertip to the tinder. To her relief, the flames that arose as the dry twigs ignited were entirely ordinary.

"That was quick," said ibn Saul, when she stepped aside so he could warm himself at the now-cheery blaze. Pierrette was not cheerful. The fire itself was ordinary, but the initial spark had not been so, and she now knew that in this place, this devastated land, no magic would work the way she might expect.

The oily red flame was not a comfort, but a warning: do not trust the spirits of these trees, broodingshadows, murky streams and pools, because you do not know them, nor they you. Do not utter ancient words heedlessly, because they may mean something different here, something red and angry, something deadly, something . . . evil.

The scholar was completely unaware of what Pierrette sensed. "Now I again believe we may survive to reach Moridunnon," he said before he fell asleep. "For a while, I feared I would die before morning."

Pierrette let him keep her cloak. She did not expect to sleep that night, and the fire, despite its sinister source, was warm and bright.

Chapter 14 - Strange Houses.

The next day brought them to a divide, and to a stream that flowed northward. With the remainder of their luggage heaped atop Gustave's panniers, they made good time.

At noon, when the sun was near the height of its arc, ibn Saul unwrapped his instruments and a codex containing long columns of numbers. They were written in a variant of the Arabic numerals that facilitated calculations that would have stymied the most proficient Roman mathematician of yore. The scholar stuck a stick in the ground, angled northward, and at the exact moment its shadow was shortest, used his movable arc and arrow to determine the sun's height. "We are only three or four days short of our goal, even if we find no decent road," he announced. But they had salvaged only a small wheel of soggy cheese and a single fat sausage from the supplies on the boat, and those were soon gone. They would need food, and soon, if they were to continue.

They camped on a ridge overlooking a broad valley, where a sizable stream snaked and twisted. Surely, it led west to the sea, but no one suggested they try to acquire a boat. Broad enough to float on, the stream was navigable for Nors.e.m.e.n as well. A bit left of their planned descent rose columns of smoke-the trickles of hearth fires, not the billows of burning buildings. Despite their rumbling stomachs, they decided it would be wise to wait until morning to approach the community. It was not close enough for them to arrive before darkness.

They slept comfortably enough, at the edge of the woods, but Pierrette's sleep was frequently interrupted by uneasy awakenings, as if dark, unseen things scampered over her bedclothes, heading always westward.

The village stood astraddle a low-water ford. Its houses, mostly one- and two-story, were of heavy timber and mud brick-both available in good supply nearby. Much of the timberwork looked new, yellow instead of gray. The arrival of five strangers created not the outcry they would have expected, but only a sullen, wary caution. A boy herding a flock of geese deftly goaded his charges into the underbrush, and moments later Pierrette saw him slinking along the bank toward the town's only street. Thus forewarned, three white-haired men came forth, gripping an a.s.sortment of rusty weapons-a Gallic longsword with a chip in its blade, a boar-spear with a bronze crosspiece a foot from its point, and a short, broad gladius that, from its rust and its style, might have belonged to some Roman ancestor, many centuries before.

Lovi and ibn Saul kept their own superior weapons sheathed, and Yan Oors leaned on his staff as if it were only what it seemed: a none-too-well-fashioned walking stick. Pierrette, least threatening of theirband, stepped ahead of the others. She explained how they had come to be afoot, without baggage or food.

"We also have experienced Viking wrath," said the village magistrate, who bore the Roman name Semp.r.o.nius. "Our town once perched on a bluff overlooking the sea, at the mouth of this stream. They burned it, and took most of our young men and women as slaves. We are all that's left. If you want to stay, you will be welcome."

"We can't do that. But will you sell us food for our journey, and cloaks or blankets, if you can spare them?"

Semp.r.o.nius agreed to discuss it. He motioned Pierrette and ibn Saul forward-the rest must stand where they were. He led them into the first house, to a table of rough wood, with splintery benches not yet worn smooth. He produced a pitcher and clay cups, into which he poured a clear, golden wine.

"This is fine, strange stuff," ibn Saul said after his first sip. "What grape produces it?"

Semp.r.o.nius laughed. "The red grape of the forest-this is apple wine. Our vineyards lie overgrown with weeds, too far away from here to tend, but even the sourest apples, properly bruised and crushed, yield a sweet nectar." When the bargaining was done, the scholar resolved, several skins of apple wine would be included with their new supplies.

"What is that strange little hole in the wall?" asked Pierrette. "I saw similar ones on other houses here."

Semp.r.o.nius's gaze turned cautious. "Indeed you must be new to this country. That is a spirit hole."

Reluctantly, when ibn Saul pressed him, he explained that when an evil dream plagued someone, the hole provided escape for whatever had caused it, when the victim awakened and cried out in fear or misery.

"Without the spirit holes, our houses would become infested with nightmares, and we would have to sleep on the roofs or in trees to escape them." He was reluctant to say more, sensing that the scholar considered him foolishly superst.i.tious, and Pierrette had no opportunity to question him privately.

"What odd beliefs country folk evolve in their isolation," mused ibn Saul, when they were again under way, following a stream that, so they were told, led upward to the mountainous spine of the land, to Broceliande, the great forest of ancient trees no man had cut, even in the time of the Romans. "Spirit holes, indeed."

Pierrette did not respond to his scoffing, but when she later found herself walking next to Yan Oors, ahead of the others, she asked if he had noticed the holes. "Nightmares indeed. I saw several holes," he responded. "And all were in the west walls. Some houses had several of them. I presume that those houses had several rooms, and one such hole for each chamber." He had noticed something else that Pierrette had not: the village street trended north and south, instead of along the river, as might have been expected, unless there was a definite road going north from the ford, which there was not. "I think that when they built that new village, they laid it out with those 'spirit holes' in mind-so no western wall would abut another house, or even another room."

"We haven't seen any other towns here," Pierrette said, "but none of the ones we pa.s.sed through before were like that. I wonder if it is an old custom in these parts, or . . ."

"Or if the shadows that well up from spilled blood and offal, and creep always westward, are more recent, and only a new village might be built like this, to allow them pa.s.sage?" Pierrette formed a mental image of just such an apparition, trapped in a house with no hole, b.u.mbling mindlessly along its westernmost wall seeking an exit, but without the intelligence even of a rat, which would know enough to retrace its steps and find freedom. "If we pa.s.s through another town, one not thrown up by refugees from the Nors.e.m.e.n, and it is not so arranged, we will know that such westward-creeping shades were not known of old. But we will be no closer to knowing why they creep and b.u.mble always to the west, or what drives them, or what they seek." Yan Oors agreed that was so.

But the gaunt man had something else on his mind. "I have spoken with the scholar," he said, hesitantly.

"I have told him that . . . that I must go my own way, from here on."

"You mean . . . you're leaving me? But you said your destination was the same as mine!"

"Near enough, it is. But you are now going to visit this old magician, who lives north of here-if indeed he still lives. I will take a more direct route, and if I find a sow bear that is big with cubs, I'll come and fetch you-and you alone. Besides, though he has accepted me uncritically, and I have tried not to give him anything to write about, I have been pressing my luck. Later or anon, I might find myself moved to do something . . . magical . . . and he would feel obliged to explain it away."

"I don't want you to go."

"I must. When I have my cubs, I will be whole again."

Pierrette considered that a mistake. "This is a vast land. How will you find me? And if I am not there when the cubs are born . . ."

"You will follow the earth-lines. I will be able to find you, and when I do, we'll travel more quickly than we have up to now, b.u.mbling through the bushes at your donkey's pace."

Pierrette did not agree, but what could she say? That his haste seemed precipitate and ill-planned? Any plans she might have had were shattered when the boat sank, many leagues from her own destination.

Yan Oors took his leave without further words. He had no baggage, only his staff and pouch, and he faded into the dark woods as if he had never been. That night, feeling quite abandoned, Pierrette cried herself to sleep.

Chapter 15 - Lovi's.

Confusion There were always clear paths leading northward, and easy, shallow fords at every stream. Always, they found themselves walking in sunshine during the dew-spattered early hours, then in the shade of huge overarching trees in the heat of the day. The few villages they happened on were clean and prosperous, mostly new ones built by refugees from the Viking terror that surged and ebbed in the valleys of the navigable rivers. In some, every room had a small hole at ground level but, increasingly as they bore northward, floors were of puncheon planks set on joists above the ground, and open beneath. "It's because of the dampness," villagers explained. "Breezes sweep under the floors, as does runoff from the rains." Other things also pa.s.sed beneath those dry floors, unheeded, or at least unmentioned.

The going proved easy. Ibn Saul was generous with his purse's contents, and everyone now had a good cloak and a full stomach after every meal. The local bread, made with flour so deep a purple that it was called "black wheat," was as hefty in the belly as an equal portion of lean meat, and just as sustaining. The new apple wines were effervescent and never cloying, and their cart was always well laden with redolent cheeses. There was no oil to be obtained at any price, but a taste for b.u.t.ter made from cow's milk was not hard to acquire.

One afternoon, as they walked silently on cushions of fallen needles beneath tall, sighing pines, Pierrette found herself in step with Gregorius. The others were strung out well ahead. "At last," he said, "I can speak with you alone." Pierrette did not know what he might have to say to her. She c.o.c.ked her head attentively. "I think Lovi and the scholar are both blind," he said. "But you see them, don't you? The big, silent fellow did too, didn't he?"

"See what, Father Gregorius?"

"The creeping things! I've seen you cringe when one crossed your path. Are they ghosts, or demons?"

"I know little more than you do," Pierrette replied. "If they are ghosts, they are not spirits of people who have died, for they do not linger near graves or scenes of death. If they are demons, they exhibit no desire for human bodies or minds to infest. As for where they originate . . ."

"In the last village but one-the settlement with the priest and his little wooden church-I saw one emerge from a man's mouth."

"Tell me."

"Surely you were there. Remember the carpenter with the black tooth?"

"Of course. The blacksmith pulled the tooth with his smallest tongs, and then the priest gave him a paste of sawdust from the new altar, mixed with holy water, to ease his pain."

"And it worked! I saw his face ease, and his moans soon ceased. I also saw the blackness emerge from his mouth like smoke. But unlike smoke, it did not dissipate. It slithered down his b.l.o.o.d.y chin and chest, and then it fled . . . that way."

"Westward. Yes, it would have done that. But there is something missing. What else do you remember?

What did the village priest say?"

"Why, only the usual . . . he bade the pain be gone, and . . ."

"What words, exactly, did he utter?"

"I think he said 'Let this dust and water drive out all that is evil.' "

"There you have it. The equation."

"I don't understand." "I suppose not. Mathematics is not as easy to learn as are bawdy songs, or tall tales of life among the Vikings, is it?"

"You insult me. I learned my sums. What you said was a non sequitur. We were not talking of mathematics."

"In a sense we were. Consider that 'one plus one' is half of a proper equation. What is in the other balance pan of the scale-and what separates the two?"

"One plus one equals two. That is elementary."

"Then 'two' rests in the other pan, doesn't it? And the word 'equals' represents the scale itself."

"I see that. But what does it have to do with-"

"Before the priest uttered his spell, the carpenter's pain was one thing. Afterward, it became something else. The priest did not say outright 'Pain equals evil,' but that is what he implied-and you saw what happened."

"The pain left him. The twice-holy stuff drove it from him, but his words were not a spell, they were-"

"The spell came first. Water and sawdust could not put pain to rout. But once defined as 'good,' the magic paste was hostile to 'evil.' Don't you see that now?"

"I do not."

Pierrette sighed. "For the priest's paste to work, he had first to transform pain-which is of itself useful when it warns of injury, else how would we know to bandage a wound, or pull a bad tooth?-into 'evil,'

which could be driven off by what he called 'good.' That transformation was the spell. The rest followed from it, a logical necessity."

She saw that Gregorius was not able to grasp her distinction. She sighed again. "As for why such shadows travel always westward, I do not know."

"There is another matter I wish to address," said Gregorius, uneasily.

"What is that?"

"Lovi. He still loves you."

"What?" She stumbled, though the trail was smooth.

"It's true," he said. "I am only a poor subst.i.tute for what he truly desires."

"But that can't be! I am not . . ."

"Not attracted to others of your s.e.x? I am-personally-grateful for that, else this journey would be a torment for me, because Lovi would be yours."

That was not what Pierrette had almost said: "But I am not a boy at all." Instead, she merely asked,"What do you want from me?"

"I don't know, exactly. But we two have become quite close. Had it not been so, I would surely have left this company while we were still in hospitable country. I consider our relationship no casual thing, but still, your shadow looms over us. I wish you could find some way to turn his thoughts away."

"I think I have an idea," she replied, "but now is not the time for it. When we reach the coast, and have found a ship, perhaps we can discuss it again."

"I do not wish to wait so long, but if I must, I will endure."