‘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,’ Lael 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 passed 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 clustered 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 clearly 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 crannog 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 crannog and looked over to shore.
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 shore 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.
‘Here, lad!’ Lael grabbed him. ‘This be a bit dangerous for someone your size. Hang on, and I’ll lift you up.’
‘Da! I didn’t even see you.’
‘Ah, but I did see you, and I was heading your way.’
Riding secure on his father’s shoulders Jahdo at last discovered the cause of the commotion. A pair of merchants on horseback, a pack of ordinary guards and a string of heavily laden mules had all marched by when, at the very end of the line, a man-like figure strode in, leading an enormous white horse laden with sacks and bundles. It was one of the Gel da’Thae, swinging a stout staff back and forth and side to side in front of him as he walked, as if he were clearing something out of his path.
He stood perhaps seven feet tall, roughly man-shaped with two short-ish but sturdy legs, a long torso, two long arms, and a face with recognizable man-like features – but he was no man nor dwarf, either. His skin was as pale as milk in the places where it appeared between the lacings of his tight leather shirt and trousers, but his black hair was as coarse and bristling-straight as a boar’s. At the bridge of his enormous nose his eyebrows grew together in a sharp V and merged into his hairline. His hair itself plumed up, then swept back and down over his long skull to cascade to his waist. Here and there in this mane hung tiny braids, tied off with thongs and little charms and amulets. The backs of his enormous hands were furred with stubby black hair, too. His cheeks, however, were hairless, merely tattooed all over in a complex blue and purple pattern of lines and circles.
As he walked, he turned his head this way and that, to listen rather than look, because where eyes should have gleamed under his furred brows were only empty sockets, pale and knotted with scars.
‘Oh!’ Jahdo spoke without thinking, in his piping boy’s voice that cut through the noise of the crowd. ‘He be blind.’
With a toss of his maned head the Gel da’Thae stopped walking in front of Lael and swung toward the sound of Jahdo’s voice. He bared strong white teeth, with more than a hint of fang about the incisors.
‘Do you mock me, lad?’ Although he spoke in the language of the Rhiddaer, his voice growled out and rumbled, echoing back and forth like the waves of a storm slapping off a pier.
‘Never, never,’ Jahdo stammered. ‘I be truly sorry. I were just so surprised.’
‘No doubt. But you’re an ill-mannered little cub nonetheless.’
‘I am, sir, truly, and I’ll try to learn better.’
‘Ill-mannered and cowardly to boot.’ The Gel da’Thae paused, sniffing the air. ‘Huh. I sense a man carrying you. Are you the lad’s father?’
‘I am,’ Lael said, and his voice was steady and cold. ‘And I’ll speak for him. He be no coward, sir. He be shamed that he might have wounded your feelings.’
The Gel da’Thae grunted, tucked his staff under one arm, and reached out an enormous hand to pat the side of Lael’s face. He reached higher, found Jahdo’s arm and patted that, then took his hand away and smelt his own palm.
‘Huh, sure enough, I sense no fear on the lad, but by all the gods and demons, as well, the pair of you stink of ferrets!’
‘So we do, no doubt. You’ve got a keen nose.’
‘Hah! I may be blind, but a man would have to be dead to miss that scent.’ He seemed to be smiling, pulling thin lips back from his fangs. ‘Well, a good day to you both and your weasel friends as well.’
With a whistle to the huge horse, the Gel da’Thae walked off, tapping his way with the staff as he followed the jingling of the caravan along the curve of the lake, where a grassy stretch of shore was set aside for travelling merchants. Lael swung Jahdo down with a grunt.
‘You’d best mind your mouth after this, lad. You always did have a cursed big one.’
‘I know, Da, and I truly truly be sorry.’
‘No doubt. But the last thing we do want is to give insult to one of the Horsekin. That’s all they need, one word for a thin excuse, and they cry war. I hate to see one of them here for just that reason. If that bard goes taking offence, we’ll have his clan riding at the head of an army to siege us.’
‘How do you know he’s a bard?’
‘Because his eyes are gone. That’s what they do, when they decide one of their boy-children has the voice to make a bard. They do scoop his eyes right out with the point of a knife, because they do think it make his singing sweeter.’
Jahdo nearly gagged. He turned sharply away, found himself staring up at Councilman Verrarc, and felt the blood drain from his face in a wave of cold fear.
‘Somewhat wrong, lad?’ Verrarc’s voice was mild, but his stare was sharp and cold. ‘You look frightened.’
‘Oh, he had a bit of a run-in with that Gel da’Thae bard,’ Lael said, smiling. ‘He’s never seen one of their tribe before.’
‘Enough to scare anyone, that.’
‘What’s he doing here, anyway?’ Lael went on.
‘Cursed if I know.’ Verrarc shrugged, visibly worried. ‘That’s why the guards did fetch me and the rest of the council before they did let that lot in. We’re going to pay him a visit, just to ask, like, down at the campground.’
‘Think it be trouble?’
‘I wish I knew, Lael, I wish I knew. As he walked by, he did tell me that he’d come to claim a tribute we owe his kind. We’ve got a web of treaties and obligations with these people, much as I wish we didn’t, and so who knows what he means by it? I’d best be finding out.’
Verrarc turned away with a pleasant nod, but Jahdo felt his fear deepen to a clot like goat’s hair in his mouth. With a dream-like clarity he knew that showing his fear of the councilman was dangerous, that if Verrarc thought he remembered – remembered what? The terror in the meadow. The hiss of a snake.
‘Well, lad,’ Lael said. ‘You do look as white as I’ve ever seen you. What be so wrong?’
Jahdo was about to tell, then realized that the councilman lingered within earshot.
‘The bard’s eyes, Da, that’s all. I keep imagining how that knife would feel when they did it.’
‘A nasty thing, sure enough.’ Lael shuddered a bit himself. ‘But they’re a strange lot all round, and cruel enough as well. Come along now, let’s get home. We need to stop to claim a fee, too.’
‘I did it already, Da. Mam told me to. I got a lot of roast goat from the Widow Suka.’
‘Splendid. Let’s go fetch it home, then.’
The news had preceded them to Citadel. As they were tying up the coracle, a handful of militiamen surrounded them. With the swing of one broad hand and a toss of his blonde head, Demet pushed his way to the front. The family had known him all their lives, just as most everyone knew everyone else in Cerr Cawnen.
‘Be it true, Lael?’ Demet burst out. ‘Is one of the Horsekin in the city?’
‘He is, and we did see him. A bard, and blind as a mole. Councilman Verrarc says he’s come to claim some ancient due or service.’
All the men swore, laying automatic hands on sword hilt or knife. Demet looked away to the distant shore and shaded his eyes with one hand, as if he were hoping to see the stranger.
‘I don’t see why we had to go and make treaties with them, anyway,’ Jahdo said.
‘Better than being their slaves, lad,’ Lael said. ‘Or the slaves of the wild tribes up to the north. Better to bargain with the Horsekin we know than fight the ones we don’t, bain’t?’
‘True spoken.’ Demet turned back to them. ‘But I’ll wager we call council fire tonight over this.’
No one bothered to argue with him, and rightly so. Just at sunset the big bronze gong that hung at the top of Citadel began to clang and boom across the water. More ominous than thunder, each huge stroke hung in the darkening air. When Jahdo and his family left their quarters, he could see boats and coracles, skittering on their oars like so many waterbugs, as all round the shore the townsfolk swarmed across the lake. Every person who dwelt within earshot of the gong had the right to attend these councils and make their wishes known, man and woman alike, just as everyone had the right to vote for the Town Council, too. Out in the Rhiddaer there were no lords and kings. As the citizenry hurried up the steep streets of Citadel in a tide of rumour and fear, the family made its own way to the assembly ground.
In front of the stone council hall, which sported a colonnade and a flight of shallow steps, stretched a plaza, paved with bricks. Off to one side, the militia was heaping up wood for a bonfire to light the proceedings. Jahdo and Niffa scrambled to the top of the thick wall on the uphill side and watched the murmuring crowd grow larger and larger. Every now and then Jahdo would turn round and look back at the lake. Already in the cooler evening mists were rising over deep water. Since it was fed by hot springs, the lake ran warm. Just as the night grew thick, and the flames began to leap high from the fire, casting enormous shadows across the arches and pillars of the hall, the council barge tied up down at the jetty. From his perch Jahdo could see the torches bobbing along the twisted streets of Citadel and pick out the council members, too, as the procession panted its way up the steep hillside. Striding among them was the Gel da’Thae bard.
‘I be scared,’ Niffa said abruptly. ‘I don’t know why. I just feel so cold and strange, like.’
‘Oh, he’s not so bad, really. The bard, I mean. And this won’t have anything to do with us.’
‘Don’t go being so sure, little brother. I never feel like this for no reason at all.’ Her voice stuck in her throat, and she paused, gulping for air. ‘Let’s get off this wall. Let’s go find Mam and Da.’
‘I don’t want to. I can’t see anything down in the crowd.’
‘Jahdo, come on! You can’t stay here.’
He hesitated, considering, but taking orders from his sister rankled.
‘Won’t. You go down if you want to.’
‘You dolt! Come with me!’
He shook his head in a stubborn no and refused to say a thing more. After a moment she slid down and plunged into the crowd like a swimmer into waves. He could just make her out, heading from clot to murmuring clot of townsfolk, until at last she fetched up next to Demet, standing guard near the fire itself. So that’s it! Jahdo thought. She just wanted to find him, not Mam and Da at all.
Brass horns blared at the gates to the plaza. The crowd shrank back into itself, opening a narrow passage through for the councilmen, with Verrarc in the lead and Admi, the Chief Speaker, bringing up the rear. In the middle strode the Gel da’Thae, surrounded by councilmen, all murmuring to him at once, whether or not he could hear over the crowd and the horns. As they reached the steps, a squad of militiamen escorted them to the big stone rostrum near the fire. After some confused milling round, the clot opened again to let Admi climb the rostrum. A tall man with narrow shoulders but a big belly, he was going bald rather badly, so that he seemed made from perched spheres. In the firelight his head gleamed with sweat, and his tiny eyes peered out at the crowd through slits in heavy flesh. Yet when he spoke, his dark voice rang like gold.
‘Fellow citizens! We do have among us a guest, the honoured bard Meer of the Gel da’Thae.’
Dutifully everyone clapped their hands, a patter of sound, dying fast.
‘He does come on grave purpose and with serious intent. Trouble brews in the far west. The wild tribes of the northern Horsekin are on the move.’
It seemed that everyone in the plaza caught their breath hard. Even over the crackle of the bonfire their dismay hammered on the surrounding walls. Admi wiped his forehead with both hands, unconsciously pushing back hair he no longer had.
‘May the gods allow that this trouble stay among them!’ Admi went on. ‘Yet who knows what the gods intend? The western Horsekin, our allies for all these long years, are fortifying their cities. From what Meer does tell me, it behooves us to look to our own. We go on full guard and military alert.’
Murmurs, nods – the crowd moved within itself, then fell silent. Jahdo inched closer along the wall. He could just see Meer, turning his head slowly back and forth, as if listening to the temper of the gathering.
‘Since Meer did travel long and hard to reach us, he will claim a reward,’ Admi continued. ‘He would journey farther on, where none of our merchants do go, and he does need a servant and guide. Sightless as he is, he requires a lad to wait upon him in his roamings, now that he can no longer travel with a caravan.’
Too late Jahdo remembered his sister’s premonitions. He clung to the wall, paralysed like a rat cornered by a ferret, as Councilman Verrarc walked to the edge of the steps and looked his way. The traitor fire flared up and sent long lines of light to bind him to Verrarc’s cold blue stare. In the crowd several men called out a question.
‘He’s heading east.’ In the stress of the moment Admi dropped his rhetoric. ‘He says he does have business at the border. The one we share with the Slavers.’
Jahdo turned so weak and cold that he nearly fell. He grabbed the rough stones to steady himself and swung down to hide in the muttering swarm of townsfolk. Too late – Verrarc was speaking to the militiamen, summoning a pair, plunging into the crowd and heading straight for him. Jahdo tried to run, but caught in the forest of grown-ups he found no path. Verrarc laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and swung him round. The councilman was smiling.
‘Meer did remember you, lad. Bring me the boy who smells of ferrets, he said. That one owns a brave heart.’
Jahdo stared into his eyes and felt again that he was spinning in a mind-eddy, down and down, drowning in the lake of Verrarc’s eyes. From what seemed like far away he heard a woman screaming in rage. The screams grew louder, rushed close, turned into his mother’s voice. The spell broke. His mother’s face hovered above him.
‘You mayn’t, you mayn’t! How can you even think of it?’
‘It be the treaty bond, Dera!’ Verrarc shoved himself back, raising one hand ready to ward blows. ‘It’s needful that someone go. Do you want a whole pack of Horsekin sieging us for breaking the treaty?’
‘He be but ten summers! Send some other lad. Send one of the militia.’
‘Meer didn’t ask for some other lad.’
With an animal snarl Dera turned away and began shoving her way toward the steps. In his mother’s strong grip Jahdo found himself dragged after as the guards and Verrarc followed, with Verrarc arguing with Dera the entire way. Jahdo could just sense the crowd thinning, swaying, as most of the citizens headed for the gate. He was willing to bet that the family of every other boy there was running for safety. In the flaring torchlight by the colonnade Meer stood waiting, his arms crossed over his chest.
‘Listen, you!’ Dera growled. ‘I do care not if you be one of the gods themselves. You’re not taking my son away.’
‘Dera, please, hold your tongue!’ Verrarc looked terrified. ‘You’ll insult our guest.’
With Niffa, Demet, and Kiel right behind him, Lael pushed through the crowd. Dera ignored him and the councilman both and waggled one finger under Meer’s flat nose.
‘Just who do you think you are, anyway,’ she went on. ‘Marching in here and –’
‘My good woman, please!’ Meer held one huge hand up flat for silence. ‘I come to you as a suppliant, as one in need. Please, I beg you, allow your son to come with me. I promise you I’ll treat him not as a slave, but every bit as well and tenderly as I would treat my very own first-born nephew.’
Dera hesitated. Verrarc muttered astonishments.
‘A mother’s words are law, Councilman,’ Meer snapped. ‘My good woman, as I travelled this day through your city, everywhere I smelt fear, except on your son. He’s like one of your weasels, very small, but with the heart of a wolf. I cannot travel alone.’ He reached up to touch the rim of an empty eye-socket. ‘My own mother wept when they blinded me, but in the end my calling pleased her well. For all I know, some great destiny lies in wait for your lad. Would you stand in his way?’
‘Well now.’ Dera let out her breath in a puff. ‘Well now. If you were going anywhere but east –’
‘Truly, the name of the Slavers is not one to speak in jest. Among my own people we call them Lijik Ganda, the Red Reivers. An aeon ago they swept down upon us, and the slaughter drove us from our homeland and into sin and degradation. Woe, woe to the people of the horse that our desperation drove us to such sins! Do you think we’ve forgotten such terrible things? I will not lie to you. I take your son into danger, but I would take my own nephew, had I a nephew, into the same.’
‘This thing be as important as that?’ Lael broke in.
Meer turned slightly in the direction of Councilman Verrarc, just a brief involuntary gesture. Fortunately Verrarc was whispering to one of the militiamen and, at least, seemed to notice nothing.
‘It is to me. To no one else, mayhap. My mother laid a geas upon me concerning my brother, and I have reason to believe he’s gone east.’
To Jahdo the bard’s voice sounded entirely too smooth, too glib, making him wonder if Meer were lying, but he supposed that he might have felt that way because he too had something to hide from the councilman. As he thought of Verrarc, he felt words bursting from his mouth.
‘Mam, I want to go.’
The moment he spoke he was horrified, but there was no taking the words back. Dera threw her hands into the air and keened aloud, just one brief sob of sound, quickly stifled. Lael turned to him, his mouth working.
‘If we do owe this thing under treaty,’ Lael said at last. ‘And if you want to go, well, then, there be naught much your mother and I can say about it. But be you sure, lad? At your age and all, how can you know your own mind?’
Jahdo felt his entire body trembling, trying to squeeze out the words his traitor mouth refused to speak: no, no, I didn’t mean it, I don’t want to go, I don’t. His heart pounded the words like a drum, but he could not speak.
‘He smells great things on the move, my good man,’ Meer said. ‘Even a child may sense destiny.’
‘Destiny?’ Dera spat out the word. ‘Hogwash and turnip wine!’
‘My good woman, please. With luck we’ll never even cross the Slavers’ border.’
‘Hah! That sort of luck does have a way of running short. I’m not letting my lad –’
All at once Dera stopped speaking. Meer caught himself as he was about to speak, as well, and turned, moving his huge head from side to side as if he were straining to hear some small sound. Jahdo realized that he himself was – that they all were – turning to Niffa, staring at Niffa, even though she’d said not a word. Her face had gone dead-pale, and in the broken torchlight her eyes seemed huge pools of shadow, as empty as those of the bard himself. Demet grabbed her arm to steady her.
