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Authors: Cherry Wilder,Katya Reimann

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BOOK: The Wanderer
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At Four Palms, after roll-call (
Brack, Chidderick, Dale, Dirck, she had the names by heart now
… ) Gael Maddoc went prospecting with the magic ring, to cheer them up. Sure enough, it gave a sign by a certain bush. The dark ensign, Dale, scraped away the sand and found a coffer full of precious nutmeg and cinnamon. They waited. A caravan happened along, and they were able to purchase a third camel and more food.
Long before the Lion Rock, it went very ill with Sergeant Freer (
Dirck, Freer, Fildorn, Gruach
), and they made a litter to carry him. His brave heart gave out halfway up the rock. He died in Gael Maddoc’s arms, having sent greetings to his wife and his comrades in Pfolben.
“Go on, lass!” he whispered. “You are a true kedran. You will bring them home.”
Dirck and Hadrik made his grave on the very top of the rock in an old carved hollow, perhaps the empty grave of some desert chief. They all set to work and brought great pieces of shaped stone to cover the grave, then carved the inscription with a broken knife: his name and rank, then Pfolben, Mel’Nir, and the year of the Farfaring, 354.
On the long climb down the northern face of the rock, they came upon old dwellings set in the cliff and Ali would not enter them, for fear of ghosts. Gael Maddoc’s ring winked at a doorway and she went in with the Kerry sisters (
Gruach, Hadrik
,
Kerry-Black, Kerry-Red
). They dug down under the floor and found the greatest treasure.
It was in an unpromising clay urn, and at first they thought it might contain bones … they did not wish to be grave robbers. Then a shard came loose at the base of the urn and they saw the glint of jewels.
“Nothing ventured, Captain!” said Kerry-Black.
She tapped the urn with the hilt of her sword and a mass of precious things spilled out upon the surface of the Lion Rock. Rings, bracelets, necklaces and chains … rubies, dim pearls that had lain so long in darkness, sapphires, jade, beryl, moonstones, a single diamond, larger than a pigeon’s egg. The troop came to gaze at the hoard.
“We are all rich,” said Gael Maddoc, sadly. “We will carry the Sergeant’s share home to his widow and children. Let us go down and see how it goes with the camels.”
Below them in the pass, they could see those on camel detail struggling with the contrary beasts. Camels were nothing like horses; it was almost impossible to love them. Even Ali was not very close to these animals that spat and balked and looked down their noses at the world. There was a Danasken trooper, Leshnar of the Eastmark, (
Kerry-Red, Leshnar, Maddoc, Rawl
), who had a way with these wretched creatures. She was the only one who rode them well besides Ali, but they all took turns riding.
The Gulch of Souls was a dreadful place, cold as the grave by night and so hot by day they could hardly breathe. At the end of the winding pass, the ring found a vein of gold in the rock,
and it was named Ali’s Goldmine, for only the camel boy would come this way again. At Rakhir, when they thought the way would never end, the desert tribes made a feast for them with music and dancing. Gael Maddoc looked at herself in a mirror of polished brass and she saw a woman of the desert, pale eyes staring from a thin, brown face.
So they plodded on behind the swaying camels and the youngest kedran, Rawl, ran on ahead to a patch of thorn on the crest of a dune. She began to call and dance about, but a stiff breeze took away her voice. They rushed up to her, knee-deep in the hot sand, and some stayed kneeling to thank the Goddess. From the crest of the dune, they beheld the sea.
Gael Maddoc walked upon the walls of Seph-al-Ara and looked back the way they had come. She tried to feel a moment of triumph: she would lead them home, every last one:
Rawl, Rivo, Trulach, Zarr.
Ali, the richest camel boy in town since he received his share of the spoils, saw her sorrowful look.
“Mistress,” he said, “you must accept your fate.”
“What fate is that?”
She swung her wrist to hear the chink of the six golden coins on their new thong, purchased in the Seph-al-Ara marketplace. She had kept this piece of treasure for herself. Once, she had intended to pass it on to her master, Blayn, but that chance was gone now, the treasure must be hers. There was magic in the coins, she was sure of it, and it did not come from the Swordmaker of Aghiras.
“You are a
Wanderer,”
said Ali. “Your life lord has left you. He broke the chain, but you survived. Now you are alone to make your own judgments. Mistress, your journeying has just begun.” Ali was young, but Gael Maddoc could not help but feel that his words had hold of a certain truth. The innocence of her loyalty was gone.
Next day they took ship with a trader and were brought swiftly over the tideless sea and up the river Elnor to Pfolben,
in the Southland of Mel’Nir. It was summer, the golden grain was being harvested; they had come home to Pfolben fields. There were kedran whose families lived south of the capital, but they remained aboard ship, unwilling to break the bonds of comradeship. They spoke of all the trials they had passed; they missed the desert; it had stolen a part of their souls.
As they drew near the city, they saw that the wharves on either side of the lazy stream were decorated with flowers and banners. They saw a chain of dancers on Orange Flower Street; they exclaimed at the sight of kerns and kedran in their dress livery, the Kingfisher Company in their blues. They looked down at their own clean but faded uniforms, bleached by the sun, and the Zebbeck boots they wore. Music came to them on the wind; Trooper Hadrik said:
“Could the word have got out?”
“Gruach,” said Gael Maddoc, “what day is it?”
Gruach had notched the days on the lid of a little cedarwood box, a souvenir from the bazaar of Aghiras.
“Captain, by our reckoning it is the ninth day of the eighth month, the Maplemoon.”
“We have lost three days to the sands,” said Gael. “It is the twelfth day of the Maplemoon, Lord Maurik’s birthday.”
They had been absent from the Southland for one hundred and twelve days; they had spent sixty days crossing the desert.
“Captain,” said Rawl timidly, “will they be giving the lord his gifts in Moon Crescent?”
They came off the trader and were caught up in the press of folk coming from the wharves, all making for the Crescent. None of the townspeople recognized them. The golden trumpets of the Lord of Pfolben called the hour of the gift giving when they were a short distance away.
The Crescent was a beautiful curved courtyard from the time of the Princes of the Burnt Lands, all tiled in blue, at the eastern door of the palace. A colored barrier had been set up and there were the lord’s subjects with his gifts: a fine bay horse, a giant pumpkin on a cart, a hogshead of wine from the vintners, a silken tapestry from the women of a village. These good folk had been chosen to stand at the barrier with their presents, and a kedran troop patrolled to keep the crowd back.
Already Lord Maurik and his lady had begun receiving the offerings at one end of the yard, and a herald went along to cry out the gifts. So they waited, muffled up in their cloaks, although the day was warm, and before the last gift was called, they pressed forward. Gael Maddoc reached up and tugged the bridle of a brown horse. The kedran officer looked down angrily.
“Get back!”
It was Captain Witt. She stared as Gael lowered her cloak, for she saw a ghost
“Maddoc?”
“Bid the herald call another offering, Captain,” said Gael.
The kedran on duty almost lost control of their horses. The crowd drew back, wondering, and the herald roared out the words he had been given:
“
A gift from the Burnt Lands!
”
So they marched proudly up to the very center of the barrier, and the Lord of the Southland turned from thanking the women for their tapestry to survey his final gift. There they stood, weather-beaten and weary, thirteen kedran and two men of the palace guard.
Lord Maurik came and stood before them with his lady, fair Annhad, as fine boned and slender as he was massive.
“But these …” he blustered. “Godfire! These are my Kingfishers! My guardsmen! … and the captain …”
Annhad of Pfolben prompted him quietly:
“Maddoc,” she said. “That is Captain Maddoc of the Kestrels.”
The good lord spread his arms wide as if he would embrace them all and called upon the Goddess and the Gods of the Farfaring, giving thanks for this great gift.
“Blayn!” he cried. “Blayn … see who has come home!”
The Lord Blayn came down the steps of the palace: a lightly built young man with hair of pure gold and a face perfectly handsome. Gael Maddoc still thought when she saw him of the Shee, the fairy race. She thought of the great devotion she had had for this lord, how she had sworn to serve him. Her whole life had been ordered by this bond. She had received benefits from the house of Pfolben and she had repaid what she had been given, but now she knew her service was done.
Hem Blayn came strutting to his father’s side, trailed, of course, by a tall kedran, his latest bodyguard.
“Godfire!” he said boldly, “have they come again? That wily magician of the Dhey lied to me! He swore that these poor souls would never return to Aghiras … after the sandstorm.”
“No more we did, lord,” said Gael Maddoc, meeting his eye. “We came to Seph-al-Ara, the town of the Zebbecks.”
The Lady Annhad understood at once. Who knew how much of the truth she had been told by her servant, Elim? She took Gael Maddoc by the hand and said softly:
“You were many days in the desert. I must rejoice that Blayn was not with you. How would it have been if he had taken this harsh journey?”
“Lady, I do not know,” said Gael Maddoc, just as low. “Perhaps it would have made a man of him.”
Lady Annhad flushed deeply at these words, but she reached and put her hand on Gael Maddoc’s own, covering the ring that had been her gift to her son’s protector. Her white fingers looked very slender over Gael’s great weathered paw. Gael felt the lady’s disappointment; there was nothing she could do. “This was destiny,” Lady Annhad mouthed, so quiet only Gael could hear her. “I had such hopes, my son’s path lay so open …”
Blayn saw the two women looking at him. He cried angrily:
“Mother, do not believe that kedran wench!”
But his words were drowned by the chorus of the thanksgiving song. Lady Annhad released the captain’s hand, Lord Maurik led the homecomers into the Crescent and there they were greeted by all the kerns and kedran of the household. It was a near riot. They were embraced and made much of and carried shoulder high all the way to the barracks. It was not every day that fifteen companions in arms returned from the dead.
Late at night, while the city still celebrated the lord’s birthday, Gael Maddoc sat on a balcony with her true companions, Amarah and Mev Arun. They had heard all that she had to tell, from the first to the last.
“Ah, this Jazeel,” said Amarah, with a hint of jealousy, “was he so dear to you?”
“He was a nice fellow,” said Gael. “I am glad he came safe home.”
“There were rumors,” said Mev Arun. “Hem Blayn was no longer an honored guest of the Dhey. There was no more question of his being a suitor for the Princess Farzia.”
“Life is uncertain in the Burnt Lands,” said Gael, “but the bond between a ruler and his lifeguards is sacred.”
“This Swordmaker rid the princess of an unworthy suitor,” said Mev Arun.
“Gael, if you end your duty here, where will you go?” asked Amarah.
“Wherever my quest will lead me,” said Gael Maddoc.
“Will we meet again?” asked Amarah.
“Surely!”
“Questing?” said Mev Arun. “Is that anything for a kedran?”
“Do you suppose I can buy out my good horse, Ebony?” asked Gael. “Who rides him now?”
Her two friends laughed.
“No one,” said Mev Arun, “if they can help it!”
“He pines for you,” said Amarah. “No one else can manage him.”
“Then I will ride back to Coombe,” said Gael Maddoc, “and so on into the world!”
COOMBE
She came home toward evening. The road was unfamiliar al
most until she reached the croft’s boundary wall and looked up at the stony hillside. From there she urged Ebony a little further and then stood behind an apple tree, watching the cottage. The tree was very old, almost dead; it bore a few hard, deformed fruit.
Gael Maddoc saw that the cottage was larger. A third and a fourth room had been built on, in the fashion of the district. The Maddocs had “come to a house,” as the saying went. There was a fine stone chimney where the old wood box had been. From a new lean-to, there came the unmistakable honk of a donkey. In four long years, the Maddocs had done very well, had grown richer.
Beside the doorstep, in a patch of sunlight, slept a plump brown cat. The door of the cottage opened as she watched and out came a short, dark, bustling woman with an apron over her skirt, wool stockings, pattens against the muck of the yard, and a plaid against the autumn chill. It was her mother, dressed up like the reeve’s wife of a Freeday. As she watched her mother draw water from the well, Gael wondered how much of the
change was brought about by the soldier’s pay she had sent home. It could hardly be accounted for by seven silver coins every third month.
She rode along the wall and came to the gateway. Her mother set down the new water bucket and stared. With a dreadful feeling of strangeness, Gael Maddoc got down to open the gate.
“Maddoc …” said her mother softly, then on a rising note, “Maddoc! Come out here! See this!”
So Maddoc came out of his house, moving as if his joints ached, and the pair of them, two short, dark Chyrian folk, stared at the tall kedran captain and her fine horse. They had had no word of her for a long time. If she had not come home from the Burnt Lands when she did, there would have been a message sent from Lowestell Fortress, brought by the same quartermaster sergeant who came by with her pay contributions. She would have been posted as missing, then later as dead. As it was, she felt very much like a ghost or a visitor from a far distant country.
“Eh, Goddess!” exclaimed Maddoc heartily. “Will that beauty fit into our lean-to?”
Gael stepped up, laughing and crying, and embraced her father and mother. Even Kenit the cat purred round her legs and seemed to remember her.
“Oh heaven and earth,” said her mother, “this will surely please the boy. He is over to Coombe working on Rhodd’s land. How often have I promised that you would come home and bring … good fortune!”
They went about in the yard and settled Ebony comfortably enough into the lean-to beside the little donkey mare. Soon Gael was sitting beside the fire with her laden saddlebags in a heap at her feet. Her mother brewed herb tea and laced their mugs with applejack from Maddoc’s leather bottle. They talked first of all about Coombe, who had married, who had died—Fion Allrada was frail but hanging on, though she came to fewer rituals at the Holywell. Old Murrin was doing well: they saw to her needs, and she asked often after Gael and her kedran service.
Yes, all the young men and Jehane were at the Plantation
now, full-fledged members of the Westlings. Bretlow Smith was an ensign and yes, by the Goddess, there was a whisper that he and his company had taken part in some skirmish in the west.
Jehane was in training to ride as a Sword Lily. Yes, Druda Strawn had come home after a long retreat in old Tuana and they had told him how Gael had gone to the Southland with the prince of Pfolben.
“So you have come to a house, Da,” said Gael.
Maddoc nodded proudly. They had been granted three good harvests, thank the Goddess. They had all gone kelp cutting, then digging stone as day laborers. The boy worked part of each week in Coombe. Her mother had six sheep now, and not one of the Coombe wives could spin and weave better than she did.
Gael was relieved to hear all this. If her contributions had played such a small part in the family fortune, they would not be missed. She felt better about breaking the news to them, one day—not today—that she would not return to Pfolben. She felt better about her own gold that remained after buying out her horse.
She opened her saddlebag and began to give out presents. She recalled the good Winter Feast when she was last by the fireside and wondered if the things she brought were too simple now that the Maddocs had become so comfortable. Her mother felt her bolt of green cloth with pleasure. Maddoc said, “What’s this?” to his new boots.
“I wore your boots when I went to the Southland,” she said, and grinned.
“So! These are a replacement!”
He was pleased; he tried the boots and they fitted well. Both her parents were pleased with the bag of oranges: yes, surely, they had tasted them on feast days in Coombe. She brought out the knife in its sheath for Bress, his baldric and belt, his gloves, his ivory flute. She had remembered he liked to play on whistles. These presents for her brother pleased her parents best of all. Her father asked if the flute were made of bone.
“A kind of bone called ivory,” she said. “It is from the Burnt Lands.”
“From the Burnt Lands?” echoed Maddoc. “Over the Southern sea?”
“I have been there,” she said. “On service.”
They stared at her with an expression that was to become familiar: a kind of unbelief. Her mother turned from the fire, where she was putting more bacon and more barley into the hotpot.
“It is a very strange country,” Gael continued. “All sand in places, with white cities and palms growing beside the wells. The traders use camels, strange beasts that can go for days without water. They have humped backs and great padded feet for walking on the desert sand.”
Her mother laughed.
“Hush!” she said. “You are beginning to sound like Old Murrin.”
Emeris Murrin had gone about in the world when she was young.
“Goddess,” chuckled Maddoc, “Murrin’s tall tales. The great grey beast with a castle on its back and a long nose …”
Gael laughed herself, looking queasily at the ivory flute.
“But there are such beasts …”
They did not hear her words. The door was flung open, and Bress came in. He had grown into a man, not so tall as Gael but broadly built. Their bright-faced lad had gone forever and Gael was sorry for it.
“Well, d’ye know who this is?” cried her mother.
“I know,” he said.
They stared at each other, and Gael smiled to cover her first thought.
“If she is home to stay,” said Bress, “then I can go for a soldier at last!”
“Hush!” said Shivorn, taking his boots and giving him her place by the fire. “See what your sister has brought you!”
Gael watched him with his knife, his belt, his gloves. For a time he would not meet her eye; he was sullen. Then at table he became more cheerful. His friend, Shim Rhodd, the innkeeper’s son, would join the Westlings, and the two young men talked a lot about army life. How such and such a lad did well, came home with a golden shoulder knot, having made ensign.
“Will you try for an officer, Gael?” he asked. “Ensign Maddoc! Hear that!”
“Do you read this star, brother?” she said. “It is Captain Maddoc, since half a year.”
There was a silence at table; they all stared at her. Bress, well muscled, curly haired, a picture of the village colt that maidens loved and elders feared, swore an oath under his breath.
“You have no need to lie, sister,” he said. “You are under our own roof.”
“I have no need to lie, brother!” she said, feeling the timbre of her voice change. Her mother said:
“Hush, let her be a captain then! Who can tell in Coombe village how things are ordered in the Southland?”
Then Shivorn Maddoc began the tale of a certain Widow Raillie, from beyond Coombe, who had one son. He had found a magic stone on their poor croft near Tuana and now they had riches to spare and had taken the Long Burn Farm. Gael could not find much point in the tale. She saw that her family accepted magic but could hardly stretch their belief to include an elephant.
When Gael went out to take a last look at Ebony in his new stabling, Bress followed her and sat with Kenit, the brown mouser, on the cope of the well.
“Take care, sister,” he said, “the Voimar will get you!”
They had scared each other as children in the dark yard, talking of the Voimar. When she laughed, Bress said:
“Don’t laugh! Shim Rhodd says the Voimar have come again. They were seen on the moor and on the high ground.”
The Voimar were demons, half man, half beast. She thought of the Afreet, a monstrous blue shape, towering above the caravan.
“I have seen some sights,” she answered. “The Voimar might not frighten me so much.”
They all went to bed when the oil lamp burned low. Bress slept by the banked fire; the father and mother had one of the new rooms. Gael had a bed made up in the little old room where the winter fodder and vegetables had once been stored and now her mother’s wool. It was her favorite room in the cottage; as a child she had often pretended it was hers alone. The door was left ajar so that Kenit could go on mouse patrol; there was a
sound in the darkness and it was Bress picking out a tune on his ivory flute. She fell asleep at once and dreamed of the desert.
Next morning Gael woke as at a bugle call. It was still dark, but the men had gone; Shivorn sat by the fire drinking her bowl of goat’s milk and eating her piece of bread. She made room for her daughter on the long settle and they broke their fast comfortably together.
“I will ride to Coombe when the sun is well up,” said Gael, “and visit Druda Strawn.”
Her mother urged her to go a little further on an errand. She should take a gift of oranges to the Widow Raillie at the Long Burn Farm, the same whose son had found the magic stone.
“We’re beholden to them,” she said. “We broke stone in their field and were well paid in kind.”
“What, in grain?” asked Gael.
“We came to a house,” said her mother. “They gave us cut stone and joists, and the son, Culain, sent a pair of their men to lend a hand.”
Shivorn Maddoc was silent for a moment, then she said:
“The widow woman is my friend. We’ve often spoken together at our spinning.”
Coombe, on an autumn morning, was quiet as the hills and the heather. The road led down from the croft then gently up again, and the village was on the crest of the rise. It had only three buildings of any size: the reeve’s house, the smithy, and the Fowlers’ Yard.
There was no guild of fowlers and trappers any longer, the woods were not so full of game. The solid building of wood and stone, with its cobbled yard, now served as a meeting hall, an alehouse, and a market. Rhodd, who owned the yard, had moved with the times. The Fowlers’ Yard had become an inn. A newly painted sign showed a red-haired warrior, a giant, with tiny figures clustered about his knees. In one hand he held a club, in the other a spear. The inn was called the
General Yorath.
Gael turned out of the broad road, smiling, for she knew Druda Strawn had a hand in this. She thought of his tales of Yorath Duaring during the summer training, of the words of the bard they had heard in Silverlode. Not many persons had brought lasting help to this neglected region of the great land of Mel’Nir. General Yorath belonged with the White Lady of Nair’s Hill, who drove out the wolves, and Pigger Pingally, who first used his swine to hunt for truffles.
She took her way down the lane past the smithy and saw that it was burning low, with no horses being shod, only the prentice lads working metal. She came to the holy tree and the priest’s house: the two-roomed cottage nestled under the mighty oak. Druda Strawn had no need to come to a house; he lived out of doors even more than the crofters.
In the depths of winter he could be seen riding the drifts on upturned basket shoes of his own invention. In spring he was the first to ride out on his old nag, and in summer he slept in the woods or on the heather. Now, in autumn, he sat on his doorstep among the falling oak leaves and carved at his bowls and platters. He culled the woods and accepted a portion of any tree felled round about. He gave the wooden vessels that he carved to those who had need of them: the crofters who lived on the edge of things, those who were too poor to take much part in village life. The Maddocs had received their share.
He laid his work aside and sprang up from the doorstep. His old horse whinnied from its stall. He stared long and hard at horse and rider; Gael knew he saw what there was to be seen. She had gone for a kedran and done him credit.
Before they talked together, the Druda gave his blessing and uttered a prayer. Then she took her place on the thick oaken block that was the visitor’s seat. All manner of men and women came and sat before the house and told their troubles to this Guardian Priest. The Druda was always a reserved man, though he inspired trust. He barely smiled when Gael gave him his first present, a knife, but he smiled indeed when she brought out the second, a book, its leather binding prettily embossed with red scrollwork.
“Child,” he said, “I have a book already!”
It was a joke; they both laughed, and Gael’s laughter rang a
little sadly. This was exactly what Bress had said when she showed her family the priest’s gift, four winters past, following that golden summer as a Green Rider.
“This is a fine book,” said Druda Strawn, unwrapping the cloth package. “A printed book!”
“It is a paper Lienbook,” she said, “like the one called
Tales of the Sea and Land
that you sent me for the Winter Feast.”
The book had been made in Pfolben and it was called
Readings from the Scrolls of Mel’Nir.
It was a collection of tales and legends from the chronicles, simply written. Each tale was marked for its origin: “re-told from the Dathsa,” “taken from the Scroll of Vil,” or “a version from the Book of the Farfarers.”
“Oh very fine!” said Druda Strawn. “Have you read these tales?”
“About half of the stories,” she admitted, “but if I am still here in summer and you are at home …”
Druda Strawn laid aside the book and stared at her very keenly.
“You will alter your service?” he asked.
“I no longer serve the Lord of Pfolben or his son,” she said.
“To have come so far … you are a captain …”
“My rank counts everywhere,” she said, “if I take another posting.”
“Speak!” ordered the priest. “What ails you, Gael Maddoc?”
So she told him of her years of service and her journey to the Burnt Lands. At last she drew out the six heavy gold coins threaded on a thong that she had found in the desert, in the ruined temple.
“I believe I have a calling,” she said. “By rights, these would have gone to Hem Blayn. As his kedran, all my loyalty was to him, all that I found of value should have passed at once into his hands. Instead … he deserted us. These tokens fell to my trust. I have learned I must go on a quest of some kind. There is … magic in these coins … perhaps they have to do with my questing.”
The Druda frowned and took the coins into his deep palm. As the soft metal touched his flesh, his expression changed. He looked at each one and murmured and pressed his lips in a gesture of reverence. Then, loosening the knot on the thong, he set
the gold pieces one by one on an oaken platter, between them on the leafy ground.
“Behold the Cup,” he said, his voice an incantation, speaking a holy litany. “Behold the Stone, the Lamp, the Crown, the Lance, and last the blessed Fleece.”
Not all the objects upon the coins were easily recognized. Cup and Crown were clear enough and the Lamp, once it was named, but the Stone and the Fleece were vague solid shapes and the Lance a mere cross-stroke on the gold surface.
“You have no idea what they are?” asked the Druda.
Gael shook her head.
“Have you heard of Taran’s Kelch?”
“Of course,” she said, “Taran is a Nymph of the Goddess, and her Kelch is a bowl of plenty for all the Chyrian lands. It is shown in the stars. Is it the Cup? Druda, what are these things?”
The Druda sighed.
“It is a mystery. What we have here upon the gold coins are the Hallows of Hylor. Sometimes they are called the Lost Hallows, though not all are lost …”
“Where are they?” she asked.
“The Stone is in the south wall of Achamar in the Chameln Lands,” reeled off Druda Strawn, “and the Lamp, formerly of Cayl, is whispered to be in the Sanctuary at Larkdel, in Lien. The Crown is in Eildon in the Priest King’s holy retreat, and some say the Cup, Taran’s Kelch, is in Eildon too, stolen from the Chyrian Lands. The Lance—” He looked at her seriously. “I know I have spoken to you of the Lance. Well, it is lost and it belonged to Mel’Nir. As for the Fleece …” He shook his head, as if deeply thinking.
“Perhaps I am called to find these lost things,” Gael prompted him, half hopeful.
“That would be a difficult task,” said Druda Strawn.
He sat back on his step with deep creases between his thick eyebrows.
“Let me think on these things for a short while,” he said. “You have another errand today?”
“Yes. I must bring the rest of the oranges to the Widow Raillie at the Long Burn Farm.”
He smiled a little.
“Let this also be a quest for you, Gael Maddoc,” he said, “you with your magic ring and all.”
“What shall I do?”
“Look well at these folk who have come to the Long Burn Farm. Tell me how you find them.”
She was not too pleased with her task, but she knew he would ask nothing in jest.
“Druda,” she said, remembering the rumor, “what was this skirmish in the west where Bretlow Smith saw some action?”
Druda Strawn shook his head.
“Ask at the smithy—there is some mystery about the tale!”
On the way to the newcomers she crossed over the Long Burn twice, once when it flowed under a bridge in the road and once at the entrance to the farm. The countryside was not so fair as the Southland, but the low rough hills, red-brown for autumn, pleased her eye. On a small piece of flatland, downriver from the first bridge, there was a ring of standing stones called the Maidens. Upriver there was the mill, behind leafless trees. The Maddocs had never used the mill; they had ground their own miserable harvest of grain in their own yard.
There was a new wooden bridge before the Long Burn Farm. It was a goodly way through carefully cleared and leveled fields to the substantial house. She saw the tall figure of a man, still as a stone beside a grey boundary wall on the western skyline. It was midday, cold for the time of year, and the sun just struggling through a layer of cloud. No workers were in the fields. As she came up to the yard, hounds bayed; there was a man in a blue cloak raking by the barn. A young lad ran to take her bridle and cried out:
“What d’ye seek, kedran?”
“I will see Mistress Raillie,” she said. “I have a gift from Maddoc’s croft, by the Holywell.”
It was as if a shadow had lifted. Perhaps she had given them a scare, riding in on her tall black horse. The lad grinned, the man laid aside his rake and quieted the dogs. Out of the kitchen came a maidservant and a quick smiling woman in dark green. Gael Maddoc’s first thought was that the Widow Raillie looked like her mother. They were of an age, she guessed, and of the same height, thin and olive skinned, with dark hair drawn back.
There the likeness ended. The Widow Raillie had clear, unlined skin, sparkling eyes, good teeth, an upright, youthful carriage. Her mother was still quick, but she was lined, her hair was streaked with grey … she was a crofter’s wife.
“Ah, my dear!” cried the widow heartily. “Please to step down! Welcome to our house! See, it is the Maddocs’ daughter! How your mother must have wept to see her child come home!”
Gael was impressed. Her family had earned respect, fine friends. She made the gift of oranges and the widow thanked her warmly. Ebony became skittish at first, but Gael helped the lad bring him to a stall, then followed the widow into the house.
They passed through a warm kitchen that was roughly the size of the Maddocs’ old cottage. There was a reek of food, a second maid stirred at the fireplace, shadowy flitches of bacon and strings of vegetables crowded the rafters. The widow swept on into a second room with a brazier, sheepskin rugs on the wooden floor and on the settles. By the standards of Coombe, the Raillies were rich. This could have been a room in the reeve’s house, where Gael Maddoc had gone with her father once, to ask permission to work off their tax.
The widow made her visitor comfortable, sent the maid, Bethne, for mulled wine and applecake. She laid a small soft hand on Gael’s cold cheek and sat beside her with a rustle of silken petticoats. Somehow, despite the warmth of the greeting, this sound was like a whisper of unease. Gael saw that the widow wore two gold rings, that there was a costly glass mirror upon the wall.
“Culain!” cried the widow. “See who is here! Maddoc’s daughter from the Holywell!”
Culain Raillie had come in quietly. He was older than Gael and tall as a man of Mel’Nir. Yet his black hair and blue eyes marked him out as a type of long-boned Chyrian: Gael thought of Egon Baran of the Summer Riders. Culain, like Jehane’s sweetheart, had the same fine straight features, but there was a weathering of suffering, perhaps, or guarded concern, in his countenance. When he gave his hand to the visitor and smiled, his long face did not light up.
“Well grown,” he said in the common speech. “Tall enough for a Sword Lily …”
“I served in the Southland,” said Gael.
“Why not in Krail?” asked Culain. “The Lord Knaar is always seeking tall kedran for his famed troop, the Sword Lilies.”
“Come lad,” said the widow. “You talk like a recruiting officer. We should be pleased that Gael Maddoc has come home!”
“I owe you thanks,” said Gael, “for you have helped my family come to a house.”
“We must share our good fortune,” said Culain, raising his blue eyes to her own.
“I hear you have been blessed by the Goddess,” said Gael, not sure why he spoke so, as if to challenge her, but also not ready to stand down before him. “You have a magic stone.”
Culain continued to stare at her with a sharp, appraising look.
“Come,” he said abruptly. “I am sure you will want to see our treasure.”
He led the way into a smaller room with hangings of woven stuff and several chests and coffers. An altar to the Goddess had been set up, with a silver candlestick and a wreath of evergreen. In the midst of the altar was an oval polished stone, set upright like a miniature menhir. It was about a foot high, darkest green in color, and veined in red.
“A beautiful stone,” she said. “May I touch it?”
“Most people do,” said Culain. “They ask a blessing.”
She laid her hands upon the smooth stone for a moment, then stepped back.
“You have a handsome ring,” said Culain, again abruptly. “Is it a lover’s gift?”
Gael Maddoc laughed.
“It is a ring from the Burnt Lands,” she said. “I traveled there in the service of the house of Pfolben.”
She walked to a small glazed window and looked out over the bare fields and the brown heath. Pale sunlight came in and lit up the green jewel of Lady Annhad’s ring.
BOOK: The Wanderer
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