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‘You shall have one when you’re older,’ Ranadar said. ‘Now hush!’
‘Begging the cadvridoc’s pardon,’ Rhodorix said, ‘but he’s of an age when he should be learning to ride. The younger, the better, honoured one.’
Ranadar considered him with a twisted smile, then shrugged. ‘Very well, perhaps we’ll both come have some lessons with you. Show me what this all entails.’
Rhodorix saddled and bridled Aur, then leapt into the seat and caught the reins. He walked the horse down to the end of the terrace to let it warm its muscles, then trotted back. He dismounted, made Prince Ranadar a bow, then turned to the guardsmen.
‘Saddle up, lads!’ Rhodorix said.
The men rushed off to fetch their horses, since none had yet trained them to come when called. While they struggled with the tack under Andariel’s supervision, Rhodorix lifted young Ren to Aur’s saddle and told him how to sit properly. The boy’s catslit eyes, lavender like his father’s, widened with delight at the sensation of being up so high on horseback. He followed every instruction Rhodorix gave him, then repeated every move on his own. If we live long enough to teach the lads, Rhodorix thought, the People will be as good as we are with horses.
The presence of their rhix and cadvridoc made the guardsmen even more nervous than usual. Several of them refused to use the wooden steps, but the first man to try the leap put too much spring into his jump, overbalanced on the saddle pad, and slid off to fall in a heap. His horse snorted, danced, and very nearly kicked him. He got to his feet, his face as red as a sunset, and stared at the grass to avoid looking the prince’s way until Rhodorix sent him and his mount back to their respective herds. A second man and a third tried and failed. The entire guard unit turned hang-dog, standing heads down with humiliation.
‘Ye gods, that looks difficult!’ Ranadar said. ‘Here, let me try.’
Andariel protested in a flood of words that Rhodorix couldn’t follow, not even with the crystal, but the prince laughed and insisted. Rhodorix brought Ren down from Aur’s saddle.
‘This is the best trained horse in the lot, honoured one,’ Rhodorix said. ‘He’ll stand still for you.’
On his first try the prince very nearly managed the leaping mount. In fact, Rhodorix suspected that if he’d wanted to, Ranadar could have got himself onto the saddle, albeit in an ugly flurry of arms and legs and clutching hands. Instead, the prince made a great show of sliding off and falling into the grass. He laughed and picked himself up before anyone could rush forward to help him.
‘Very difficult,’ Ranadar announced. ‘Don’t feel dishonoured on my account, men.’
The guardsmen cheered him. Rhodorix felt utterly stunned. He’d never seen a man of authority, not Devetianos nor Rhwmanos, voluntarily shame himself for the sake of the men who served him.
On a wave of good feeling all round, Ranadar collected his retinue and his son and left the guardsmen to their practising. Rhodorix watched them as they walked uphill. He’d finally found a leader worth dying for, he realized, someone with ten times the honour of a Vindex or even a Brennos.
At the end of the day, when they returned to the fortress to let the men care for their mounts in the newly built stable, Rhodorix and Andariel discussed the various problems that the lesson had shown them.
‘If we ride to battle, then dismount,’ Andariel said, ‘how are we going to get them mounted again after the fighting’s over?’
‘It’ll be worse yet if they’re unhorsed during a retreat,’ Rhodorix said. ‘You’ll have to leave them behind. They’ll never manage to remount a panicked horse.’
‘We don’t have enough men to leave anyone behind.’
‘Well, then, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s all very well to provide a set of wooden steps here in the fortress, but we can’t carry those with us to battle.’
Andariel sighed and considered the line of saddles perched on a railing. Crystals in hand, the two men were standing in an improvised tack room, part of a storehouse that the prince’s servants had roughly converted to a stable. The saddles were much like those Rhodorix knew from the homeland, simple leather pads with a cinch that went over a heavy saddle blanket.
‘Carry the steps with us?’ Andariel said eventually. ‘That gives me an idea. What if we hung a step of sorts from the saddle itself?’
‘What?’
‘I’m thinking of the rope ladders that lead up to the catwalks on the walls. What if we put straps down on each side of the saddle with loops for a man’s foot to go into?’
Rhodorix grinned in sheer admiration. ‘That just might work splendidly, once we got the horses used to the device. Stick your foot in the loop and swing your free leg over.’
‘Just so. I’ll go to the armoury and ask.’
The People knew their craft work. One of the prince’s armourers delivered a saddle with the new idea attached the very next morning. Rhodorix first accustomed Aur to having straps dangle against his sides, then tried out the new way of mounting while the armourer stood watching. Although the foot-loop certainly made getting onto the horse’s back easier, the simple saddle twisted to one side under the pull of his weight. Rhodorix dismounted and led the horse over Andariel and the armourer.
‘We need to work on the saddle,’ the armourer said through the crystals. ‘Give it back to me. I think I see what’s wrong.’
Back and forth the saddle went over the next eightnight between the armoury and the horse yard. Each time it returned, it was heavier and stiffer, until finally the leather ended up stretched over a wooden frame. The cinch had spawned two additional straps. One went round the horse’s chest, one round its behind, and the new side loops included iron bars to keep them open and stiff. Although Aur disliked this new version of its usual tack, Rhodorix heartily approved.
With the armourer and Andariel in tow, he rode down to the first terrace, then galloped along its length once. As he walked the horse back to the waiting men of the People, he tried standing with his weight on the new, reinforced loops, then sat back down and howled with laughter. He walked the snorting, dancing horse over to Andariel, who was watching from the side of the courtyard. Still grinning, Rhodorix leaned down to retrieve the black crystal from the captain.
‘A man could swing a sword from horseback like this,’ Rhodorix said. ‘It’ll take some practice, but I think we can put the fear of our gods into the Meradan with these.’ He leaned forward and patted Aur’s neck. ‘Whist! You’ll get used to it in a bit, lad.’ He straightened up again and looked at the grinning armourer. ‘A splendid job! Captain, can he make us more of these things?’
Andariel spoke briefly with the armourer, who nodded his agreement. ‘He says,’ Andariel said, ‘that he’ll set his men to work on them this very afternoon.’
‘I have good news for you,’ Hwilli said. ‘Master Jantalaber is going to take the cast off this afternoon.’
‘Splendid!’ Gerontos grinned at her over the white crystal, which he was holding. ‘Although, alas, I’ll miss seeing you every day.’
‘Oh, you’re not rid of me yet! Wait till you see what your leg looks like.’
‘Good.’ His smile turned soft.
Hwilli set the black crystal down on the table beside the bed. She felt uneasy enough to gather up her supplies and hurry out of the sickroom. Brothers always squabble, she thought, but I don’t want them squabbling over me.
When she returned to the herbroom, Nalla was standing at the table, studying a row of freshly pulled plants.
‘What are those?’ Hwilli said.
‘Comfrey,’ Nalla said, ‘I think, but the roots don’t look right to me.’
Hwilli glanced at them. ‘They’ve grown in very poor soil, I’d say. The rest of the plant certainly looks like comfrey.’
‘Ah, you’re right! I hadn’t thought of that. How’s your patient doing?’
‘The master’s going to cut the cast off this afternoon, and then I’ll know. I hope he’s healing well. He’s been terribly bored, and it worries me.’
Nalla looked up with a grin. ‘What’s this, he’s interested in you too?’
Hwilli felt her face burn. ‘My heart belongs to Rhodorix,’ she said. ‘And only him.’
‘It’s not your heart that’s the problem, but a very different portion of his anatomy.’ Nalla grinned again. ‘He’s not bad-looking, really, despite those funny eyes.’
‘I’m not going to –’
‘Who said anything about you? I was thinking of providing him a little distraction.’
Nalla’s grin turned so wicked that Hwilli had to laugh.
‘Just be careful of his leg,’ she said. ‘Don’t undo all my work.’
When the cast came off, the leg had shrivelled from sheer lack of use, and the skin lying underneath had turned as wrinkled as a toad’s. Master Jantalaber brought all his apprentices into Gerontos’s quarters to see the effects of wearing a cast for nearly two months, tested the leg, pronounced the break mended, but urged him, through the crystals, to keep his weight off it as much as possible.
‘You’ll be fine by the spring, lad,’ the master said, ‘if you’re careful now. Hwilli, let’s go to the herbroom. I’ll give you a recipe for salve that you can make up for his skin.’
Hwilli followed the master into the herbroom as the other apprentices dispersed. Jantalaber went to the massive herbal on the lectern, thumbed through its heavy parchment pages, and opened it flat at a particular page.
‘There you are, Hwilli,’ he said. ‘The formula I promised you. Before you start preparing it, though, tell me how your work with Nalla’s going.’
‘Nalla says I’m doing well,’ Hwilli said, ‘but I think she’s just being kind. I can remember all the information she gives me, but I can’t put it to use.’
‘That takes time, a great deal of time. Keep at it, and the results will come. Can you see the elemental spirits yet?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘In good time, then, in good time.’
Hwilli could only hope that the ability would come. It galled her to think that the tiniest child among the People could see the Wildfolk, while to her and her kind, they existed only as tales and jests. And what would ‘good time’ be? Compared to the long lives of the People, she had very little to spare. A few days later, however, her worry proved unnecessary.
‘After dinner tonight,’ Jantalaber told her, ‘Maraladario wants to see you.’
Maraladario, the head of the dweomermasters’ guild, the most powerful mage that anyone in the Seven Princedoms had ever known – Hwilli caught her breath in an audible gasp. The master smiled at her.
‘She won’t eat you,’ Jantalaber said. ‘In fact, she wants to give you her blessing.’
Hwilli found herself unable to answer. She laid her hand on her throat and wondered if she’d gone pale. Finally, after another gasp for breath, she managed to say, ‘I’m so honoured.’
The Tower of the Sages stood at the north end of the main palace, opposite the Tower of the Priests. As they entered through the door at its base, Master Jantalaber cast a silver dweomer light on the end of his staff, which he held up before him like a torch. Steep wooden stairs switchbacked up past landings, each with a chamber door marked with various sigils, none of which Hwilli could decipher.
Maraladario lived at the very top. The stairs ended at a landing of polished wood in four different browns, laid in a pattern of triangles. In the silvery light, the pattern rose up into interlocking pyramids, or so it appeared, rather than forming a flat surface. As her shadow fell across it, Hwilli noticed that the pyramids seemed to flatten under the shadow’s weight.
Master Jantalaber stepped onto the landing boldly. When he didn’t trip and fall, Hwilli followed him and discovered that the floor was indeed perfectly flat. The red door to Maraladario’s suite bore no sigil or decoration. When Jantalaber knocked, the dweomermaster herself opened it and ushered them into a wedge-shaped room lit by golden light. Although Hwilli had seen her from a distance many times, she’d never been this close to the great sage. Maraladario was tall, even for a woman of the People, and slender with long, delicate fingers. She wore her jet-black hair bound up in a green gauzy scarf that matched her eyes, but one long tendril hung down over her cheek. Her long blue tunic shimmered as she moved.
‘Come sit.’ Her voice was soft, pleasantly husky. ‘Would you care for wine?’
‘None for me,’ Jantalaber said.
‘Nor me either, mistress,’ Hwilli said. ‘Though I thank you.’
‘A prudent girl, and well-spoken.’ Maraladario grinned at her.
Hwilli bobbed her head and hoped she looked humble rather than terrified, her actual feeling. The dweomermaster led them to simple chairs, with wooden backs and cushioned seats, placed near a shuttered window. A small table with a mosaic top sat nearby, the only other furniture in the room. As Hwilli sat down, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. When she turned her head she saw a strange little being lurking under the table. Roughly human in shape, with purplish skin and a warty little face, it stood about two feet high. When it saw her looking its way, it stuck a bright red tongue out at her and wrinkled its nose.
‘My familiar,’ Maraladario said, ‘and a very rude little gnome, really.’ She snapped her fingers, and the gnome disappeared.
I saw him! Hwilli nearly blurted but managed to keep silence. Jantalaber, however, must have noticed, because he smiled and nodded, pleased.
‘So, you’re Hwilli.’ Maraladario sat down opposite her and considered her over folded hands. ‘Do you like studying dweomer, child?’
‘Very much, mistress. I’ve longed to study dweomer – well, not my whole life, perhaps – but as far back as I can remember.’
‘Very good. Tell me, suppose you gain great power in our craft. What will you do with it?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ Hwilli felt herself blush. Her answer sounded absolutely flat and silly to her own ears.
Maraladario, however, nodded as if she were taking it under serious consideration. ‘Honest of you,’ she said at last. ‘I suspect, though, that you’ll find out what to do with it once you gain it, assuming you do. There are great dangers on your road ahead, Hwilli. Once you finish the first studies, believe you me, there are dangers for all of us, whether Children of Air or Children of Aethyr.’
‘So I’ve been told, mistress.’
‘Good. Keep the dangers always in mind.’ Maraladario turned her calm emerald gaze on Jantalaber. ‘She has a strong aura. I think me you’ve chosen well.’
‘Thank you,’ the master said. ‘I have every hope she’ll succeed.’
‘Have you discussed our other plans with her?’
‘I have, if you mean the place of healing, but only briefly.’
‘Very well.’ She looked at Hwilli once again. ‘If we succeed in building this place of healing, it must be for everyone, not just the People, but your folk, and the dwarven folk of the Northlands, and yes, even the Meradan, those among them who prove worthy. Healing cannot be hoarded or begrudged, Hwilli. Your place in the work is crucial, because it means that your folk will have a share in the healing just as the People will. Do you understand that?’
‘I do, mistress.’ Hwilli swallowed heavily to clear her voice. ‘I’m frightened I won’t be worthy.’
‘Work hard, and you will be worthy.’ Maraladario glanced at Jantalaber. ‘Thank you for bringing your new apprentice.’
Jantalaber smiled and rose with a quick gesture to Hwilli to follow. The audience had ended.
That night, when Rhodorix came to her chamber, Hwilli considered telling him about her studies and in particular, the meeting with Maraladario, but he’d been drinking with the other guardsmen and seemed muddled. Besides, she suspected that talk of sorcery might frighten him, perhaps even turn him away from her. She’d had so little joy in her brief life that she lived in terror of losing what she now had: her healing knowledge, her dweomer studies, and a man of her own, a man of her own kind who still had as much honour as a fighting man of the People.
Instead of talk she let him fall asleep on her bed. For some while, though, she stayed awake, watching him by candlelight and thanking the gods for letting him love her.
‘You have to learn to ride wet and cold sooner or later,’ Rhodorix told his men. ‘Today’s a good day for it.’
The guardsmen grumbled, but when Andariel snapped out a string of orders, they obeyed. Rhodorix had judged it time to take his new troop of mounted soldiers off the terrace and into the real terrain beyond. They rode armed. Most of the guardsmen wore a bronze breastplate and carried a long slashing sword in a baldric, though Rhodorix had his own chain hauberk and pattern-welded sword. Five of the mounted men carried the new short bows and quivers of arrows. Andariel had deemed it wise to ride ready for trouble, since trouble lay all around them.
Under a thick grey sky the men walked their horses down the mountain, following a narrow dirt track through the system of terraces, where the farm folk were planting the winter wheat despite the chilly drizzle. Like the farm folk that Rhodorix had grown up with, they were thin, bent-backed, dressed in scruffy brown clothes with their feet wrapped in rags. Overhead birds wheeled, desperate to steal the seeds that the folk flung broadcast on the ground. Children with sticks chased them away.
Back in the homeland Rhodorix had paid little or no attention to farmfolk, but here everything struck him anew.
‘These farmers–’ Rhodorix waved his arm in their general direction ‘– they’re Hwilli’s folk?’
‘They are,’ Andariel said. ‘We bring this lot up here in the summer. Soon they’ll go back down the mountain with the cattle. The snow up here – it’s too hard on the stock. We send them to the Vale of Roses for the winter.’
Rhodorix had the distinct feeling that he was including the farmfolk with the cattle when he referred to ‘the stock’. He rose in the stirrups for a last survey of the farm folk, but none of the women looked attractive enough to give to Gerontos. They rode on, heading down the mountain. Below in a narrow valley a village of wattled huts stood around a well. More fields spread out to either side. A wider road ran the length of the valley, leading to the foothills at either end.
‘This isn’t the Vale of Roses, is it?’ Rhodorix said.
Andariel tossed his head back and laughed aloud. ‘No. In the spring we’ll ride back there, and you’ll see how splendid it is.’ His face suddenly darkened. ‘Well, with luck.’
‘And if the gods are willing. Are the farmers down there Hwilli’s folk, too?’
‘No, not at all. In the southlands around Rinbaladelan, the farmers and herders all come from the People themselves.’
‘Ah. I’d wondered.’ Which meant, he supposed, that he wouldn’t find another woman for his brother there, either.
