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‘Of a sort, perhaps.’
‘About yourself?’
‘What? Hardly!’ She smiled at him, then let the smile fade. ‘I meant the Meradan, the white savages as you call them. They’re bound to attack us, sooner or later.’
‘Now that’s true-spoken, alas. With a cadvridoc like Ranadarix commanding us, we’ll beat them off again.’
‘We can hope so.’ Her voice wavered.
‘You’re frightened, aren’t you?’ Rhodorix walked over to her.
‘Of course! Any sane person would be frightened.’
‘Well, true spoken. Fortunately, men like my brother and I were born insane.’ He grinned at her. ‘So we’ll protect you. Ranadar’s men are just as crazed as we are.’
‘I’ll hope so.’
‘Are any of them mad for you?’
Hwilli blushed.
‘I’ll wager they are,’ he went on. ‘May I escort you back to your chamber?’
‘You may not.’ She drew herself up like a great lady. ‘I’m going to join Master Jantalaber in the herbroom.’
‘Then I’ll escort you there, if you’ll allow me.’
She wavered, looking away, glancing back at him, then shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t be seemly.’ She thrust the white crystal toward his hands.
Reflexively he took it. With her head held high, she hurried out of the chamber. With a yawn Gerontos woke and propped himself up on one elbow.
‘Huh!’ Gerontos said. ‘You never stop hunting, do you?’
‘Why not? We’ll be here the rest of our lives.’ Rhodorix walked over to him. ‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Awake enough to hear you chattering away.’ Gerontos lay down again. ‘How long will we live, once the fighting comes our way? From the things Andariel’s been telling you –’
‘True enough, it doesn’t look good.’ Rhodorix paused to pull over a chair. ‘But once these men can fight from horseback, we’ll have better odds. They’re cursed good with bows, Gerro. Andariel set their arms masters to making javelins. He was talking about some kind of bow that they can learn to aim and loose from the saddle. That’ll give the Meradan somewhat new to worry about.’
‘And give us some hope. Good. Huh, I wonder if Hwilli has a sister?’ Gerro smiled at him. ‘Or at least, a friend who’s from our kind of people, a lass who’d favour a weaponmaster’s brother.’
‘I’ll ask her. It’ll be somewhat new to talk about besides your gimpy leg.’
At first Hwilli doubted that Rhodorix was courting her, not in the midst of the beautiful women of the People. Why would he want her, so plain and awkward? The other women knew how to smile in a wicked way and say witty things, how to hold their hands just so and how to look at a man they fancied slant-wise with just the right amount of invitation. She felt so sure that she’d look ridiculous that she never tried to imitate them. Yet Rhodorix spoke only to her, he smiled only at her, he kept asking to escort her places and giving her compliments.
‘Of course he’s interested,’ Nalla told her. ‘Doesn’t he follow you around?’
‘Well, he does, but –’
‘But what? If naught else, he’s a man of your people, and he’s new to our country. He’s not used to us like you are.’ Nalla laid a hand over her ear. ‘I’ll wager he thinks we’re all very strange and ugly.’
Wrapped in her envy as she was, Hwilli had never considered that possibility before.
‘Ask him,’ Nalla went on, grinning. ‘But if he says yes, he does think so, then don’t tell me.’
They were walking together on their way to the herbroom, where Master Jantalaber taught groups of students every afternoon. When they arrived, they found the long narrow room already half-full and the Master laying out herbs on the marble table. In one corner Paraberiel, a pinch-faced young man with moonbeam pale hair and emerald eyes, sat on a stool, but he was reading in the book that had no name on its cover rather than looking at the herbs or the herbal that sat open on the big lectern. With a smile Jantalaber called Hwilli and Nalla over to him.
‘There’s no need for you two to stay,’ he told them. ‘I’m going to review some very basic principles for the slowest pupils. Go amuse yourselves, if you’d like.’
‘Thank you!’ They said it together, glanced at each other, and laughed.
Nalla hurried off on some errands of her own, while Hwilli decided to go and see what the horse-riding looked like. She went outside to a cool afternoon that threatened autumn rain and hurried across the ward to the back wall. She climbed the ladder up to the catwalks and leaned between two merlons to look out.
Behind the fortress lay a long stretch of ground that had once been open and covered with grass. The horses had eaten the grass down to dirt, and masons were building new walls to enclose the area at each side and along the back. She saw no sign of the horses, however, or of Rhodorix and the guardsmen. Her disappointment clutched her so sharply that she felt tears rise in her throat. Oh don’t be so stupid! she told herself. It’s not like he’ll ever be interested in you anyway.
When she climbed down to the ward, one of the women servants hailed her. ‘If you’re looking for the riders,’ she said, ‘they took the horses out to the first terrace.’
‘Thank you,’ Hwilli said. ‘But I was just looking at the clouds. Do you think it will rain?’
‘Tonight, maybe. Winter’s on the way.’
Hwilli argued with herself all the way to the front gate of the fortress, but in the end she left and walked down the hill to a spot just above the first terrace, a narrow strip of tall grass that ran along the face of the mountain for some hundreds of yards. At one end, some of the men were harvesting the grass with scythes, while others laid it out in the sun to dry. Seeing the arrogant men of the prince’s guard working like farmers made Hwilli laugh aloud. They could barely handle the scythes, though they did keep at the task with a certain grim determination. Good! she thought. Let them see what my people go through to feed them.
At the other end of the terrace the horses were grazing in the grass, watched over by the fortress’s kennelmaster and his dogs. In the middle, where the grass had already been cropped short, Rhodorix stood by a wooden structure, vaguely horse-shaped, and talked to Andariel through the black crystal. In turn, the captain repeated everything to a semi-circle of guardsmen.
Eventually Rhodorix handed the white crystal to Andariel, who held the black. Rhodorix turned, stuck two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. Out in the herd of horses a golden horse nickered in answer. Rhodorix whistled again, and the horse trotted free of the herd and came straight to him. Even at her distance Hwilli could see how the guardsmen looked at him, worshipful, almost frightened by his command of the large and – to her – ugly beast.
The golden horse stood still when Rhodorix patted its neck and whispered to it. He walked a few steps back, then ran up and leapt for the horse’s back. It wasn’t a graceful gesture, more of a twist and a wiggle with a kick of one leg and a wave of his arms, but Rhodorix was sitting astride the horse’s back and holding the horse’s halter rope in one hand before Hwilli had quite seen what he’d done. The guardsmen all cheered, and Rhodorix, grinning, bowed to them from the horse’s back. He slid down again, and with a gentle slap on the horse’s rump, he sent it back to its herd.
Rhodorix pointed to one of the men, who walked forward. A few more instructions, and the guardsman took a deep breath, then trotted forward and leapt for the wooden horse’s back. He landed hard, stomach first athwart the wood, and slid right over and off, landing with a clumsy roll on the ground, where he lay gasping for breath. Andariel handed the crystals to Rhodorix, then hurried over to help the guardsman up. Clutching his stomach, the fellow hobbled off to join his fellows.
One at a time, the guardsmen resumed their futile attempts to mimic Rhodorix and leap onto the wooden horse. Some made it, barely, squirming and grasping at any part of the wood they could get their fingers on. A few slid off before they could get all the way on, some falling flat on their stomachs, some smack on their posteriors. Others ended up like the first guardsman and sailed right over. Hwilli could assume that many of them would end up limping into Master Jantalaber’s infirmary later, seeking poultices.
The wind strengthened, chilly and sharp through her linen dress. And what if Rhodorix should notice her watching him? Hwilli turned around and hurried back up to the fortress. She returned to her chamber and spent the afternoon studying her herbal at the lectern, but her mind drifted often to the handsome man of her own kind, who had awed the arrogant men of the People with his skill.
That evening, after she’d made her usual visit to check on Gerontos’s progress, Hwilli allowed Rhodorix to escort her back to her chamber, with each of them carrying one of the crystals. Once they were well out of his brother’s hearing, she asked what he thought of the People. Much to her surprise, he proved Nalla right.
‘They’re as generous as ever any people could be,’ Rhodorix said, ‘and our prince strikes me as a man more noble than any I’ve ever met. But ye gods, they look peculiar!’
‘Even the women?’
‘Especially the women. Now, here, I don’t mean to insult your friend Nalla, but her eyes make me uneasy, and those ears! Like a donkey’s.’
‘Oh, they are not! How mean!’
‘Very well, then, not as bad as a donkey’s.’ He reached out and touched the side of her face. ‘But she’ll never be half as lovely as you are.’
‘Come now! You’re just flattering me.’
‘And why would I do that?’
Before she could answer, he bent his head and kissed her, just a quick brush of his mouth across hers, but she felt as if he’d touched her with fire. He grinned, took the white crystal from her, and left without another word. She stood by her doorway and watched him disappear around the corner before she went inside.
That night she dreamt about Rhodorix. When the dawn gongs sounding on the priests’ tower woke her, she lay abed for some while, smiling and remembering the dream.
After the morning meal Hwilli went to the herbroom. The day before, the apprentices had cleaned several bushels of plants and set them to dry on wooden racks. They would need turning so that they’d dry evenly. When she came in, she saw Paraberiel perching on a stool and reading from the unnamed brown book. When he looked up and saw Hwilli, he said nothing, just ostentatiously put the book into a cupboard and made sure that the door stayed shut. He caught her watching him and gave her a bland little smile. You swine! Hwilli thought. Master Jantalaber hurried in from the corridor.
‘Ah, there you are, Hwilli, good,’ Jantalaber said. ‘If you’d finish working with those herbs? I’m afraid the prince has summoned me for some reason. The servant didn’t know why, so I have no idea how long I’ll be gone.’
‘Of course, Master.’
‘Thank you. Par, come with me.’
Paraberiel hesitated, turning toward the cupboard.
‘You can leave the book there,’ Jantalaber said. ‘Hwilli can look at it if she wishes.’
Paraberiel opened his mouth as if he were about to protest, but Jantalaber was striding out of the room. Reluctantly he followed the master. Hwilli waited until they were well and truly gone, then went to the cupboard and took out the little brown book. As soon as she opened it, she realized why the master had been so casual.
Although it was written in the usual syllabary, and the language seemed the usual language of the People, she had no idea what anything meant, simply because the scattered notes – mere jottings, really, in Jantalaber’s familiar script – contained a welter of unfamiliar words. Astral, convoluted, etheric, a long list of what seemed to be names, a variety of words marked with various verbal forms, another list of what seemed to be places – dweomer terms, she realized suddenly, referring to things that she’d never be judged fit to know. The master had drawn a few sketchy diagrams here and there of something he seemed to be planning on building, but she understood none of them. She shut the book with a snap and shoved it back into its cupboard.
Had the master been mocking her, when he’d told his other favoured apprentice to let her see the book? While she carefully turned each leafy plant on the wooden drying racks, that question tormented her. Jantalaber returned alone just as she’d got about half-way through her task.
‘My apologies for letting you do all that,’ he said. ‘Par resents you, you know, because you’re smarter than he is, so I knew he’d hinder rather than help you.’
Hwilli nearly dropped the rack she was carrying. Jantalaber smiled, then picked a stalk of eyebright from the tray and sniffed it.
‘Yes, you can put those back,’ he said. ‘They’re not quite ready. Did you look at the book?’
‘I did. I understood none of it. Of course.’
‘Of course?’ He quirked a pale eyebrow.
‘Isn’t that why you let me look at it? Because you knew I couldn’t make sense of it?’
‘That wasn’t it at all.’
Hwilli felt herself blush. She hurriedly turned away and carried the rack to the drying room, lined with shelves to hold the wooden racks. The scents of over fifty different herbs seemed to thicken the air, as if she’d walked into a foggy day. The master followed her.
‘I’ve often got the impression,’Jantalaber said, ‘that you’re very much interested in dweomer workings.’
‘I know they’re forbidden to me.’
‘By tradition, certainly. By common sense, not at all.’
Her hands started shaking. She slid the rack into its place on the shelves before she did drop it and disgrace herself.
‘I’ve learned as much from you as you have from me, Hwilli,’ the master continued. ‘All our traditions say that your folk cannot learn dweomer, simply cannot. I suspect that those traditions arose because none of the People ever bothered to get to know your folk.’
‘I –’ She spun around to find him smiling at her.
‘Now, I’ve taught my apprentices to put any guesses and surmises about healing to the test, haven’t I? I’d like to put my suspicion to the test. Do you want to share Nalla’s lessons?’
‘I’d like naught better in the world!’
‘So I thought. If you hadn’t bothered to look at the brown book, I never would have offered, by the by. But I felt that you’d be curious enough, and you were.’
‘Thank you, I don’t know how to thank you enough –’
‘You’re very welcome. Now, about that book. Doubtless you noticed that it only contained notes in my hand.’
‘I did.’
‘They’re notes toward an idea that lies near to my heart, a special place we could use for healing and naught but healing. This fortress exists to serve death. We healers exist to serve life, and we need a place free of death to study healing, somewhere that possesses healing in its very nature. You won’t understand all this at first.’ Suddenly he laughed, and his eyes took on an excitement she’d never seen there before. ‘I don’t truly understand it all myself. For now, let me just say that other masters in the healing arts agree and are planning on helping me build such a place.’
‘It sounds splendid.’
‘It might well be splendid, when we’re done.’ He let the smile fade. ‘Assuming, of course, that we can finish the work now, with the Meradan raiding and killing. Ah well, who knows what the gods have in store for any of us?’
‘Or what our destiny will be.’ Hwilli felt abruptly cold and shivered. ‘And perhaps that’s just as well.’
Jantalaber laughed again, but his normally silvery voice took on a hard edge. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘For now, though, I want you to look at the first three pages of that book again. I’ll wager there are words there you don’t know. Memorize them, then ask Nalla or me what they mean.’
‘I already have. Memorized them, I mean. I never thought I’d be allowed to ask.’
‘Well, you are.’ He paused, turned toward the door, and listened to a noise outside. ‘Ah, yes. Nalla, come in. Hwilli’s agreed.’
Laughing, Nalla rushed into the herbroom. She caught Hwilli’s hands in both of hers and squeezed them. ‘I know it,’ she announced, ‘I know you can do this!’
‘Thank you.’ Hwilli was thinking, I know it, too. ‘But the others? What will they say?’
‘I’m going to teach you the first steps myself, just the two of us,’ Nalla said. ‘Once you’ve caught up to the others, there’ll be naught for them to say.’
Which means they won’t like seeing me among them, doesn’t it? Aloud, Hwilli said, ‘That will be splendid, then.’
While the two apprentices finished turning the drying herbs, Hwilli learned the meaning of the words that had so puzzled her. Nalla also gave her the first principle of magical studies. All things are made of a light that has shone since the beginning of the world, but light that has convoluted, twisting around itself, bending around other rays of light, gaining substance and form with every twist and interaction, melding itself into matter in the way that a master blacksmith pattern-welds a sword from separate strips of iron.
‘Meditate on that,’ Nalla told her. ‘The teachers say that it’s the key to everything. I don’t know why, because I’m not advanced enough.’
‘You mean you’ve not worked hard enough,’ Jantalaber said, grinning. ‘Follow your own advice, Nalla.’
Nalla blushed, but she managed to smile.
For the rest of that day, Hwilli felt as if she were floating through her usual work and study. The door to the treasure chamber had swung open, a door that she’d been sure would always remain shut and locked. When she went to Gerontos and Rhodorix’s chamber to examine her patient, her splendid mood withstood Gerontos’s own foul temper. That evening he did little but complain into the black crystal. The leg ached, when could he walk on it, he hated lying still all day, the cast smelled bad and itched him, on and on until she was tempted to drug him into silence.
‘If you’re patient now,’ she said instead, ‘you’ll heal properly. If you refuse to lie still for a few more days, the leg will be twisted and strange. Which do you want?’
Gerontos set the crystal down, then crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. Rhodorix got up from his seat by the window and walked over to pick up the black pyramid.
