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Evandar pouted down at the ground for a long moment. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said at last. ‘But I shan’t bring them here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’ll be leaving to find that river.’
‘Will you bring them to me there?’
‘I shan’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the river’s too wide. Too much water!’ He vanished, completely and suddenly gone without even a shred of the opalescent mist to cover his departure.
Caswallinos muttered a few words under his breath, something highly unpleasant from what Galerinos could hear of it.
‘Master?’ Galerinos said. ‘Is Evandar truly a god?’
‘Of course not! I’m not sure what he is, mind, but he’s most assuredly not divine.’
‘But he opened the sea road for our ships, and he comes and goes –’
‘Just as the gods are supposed to come and go?’ Caswallinos snorted profoundly. ‘In the old tales, fancies of the bards, lad, fancies of the bards. I’ll explain later. Come with me. We need to tell the vergobretes about this river.’
‘True-spoken. We’d best get there today. The horses have to have water.’
‘Indeed. My heart aches for your two friends, but I’m afraid we’ll have to leave them to Evandar.’ Caswallinos paused to look Galerinos over. ‘Ye gods, your arms, lad! It looks like you’ve been fighting a few savages yourself. By the by, did Evandar drive your attackers off?’
‘He didn’t.’ Galerinos paused, wondering if his master would believe his tale. ‘I uh well er I did. Not that I know what I did. I mean –’
‘What by all the hells do you mean?’
‘I cursed them by the power of Great Belinos, just as you taught me. I pointed my staff at them, but then these long bolts of blue fire leapt out of it. Evandar called it sorcery.’
Caswallinos glared at him with narrow eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, seemed to think better of it, opened his eyes wider, then shrugged. ‘He warned me, Evandar that is,’ the old man said, ‘that our magic would be a fair bit stronger here than in the homeland. I had no idea what he meant until this moment.’
‘What did he mean?’
Caswallinos smiled. ‘Let’s find Adorix,’ was all he said. He turned and strode away with Galerinos hurrying after him.
The tribesfolk stood beside their horses or sat on the ground in the little squares of shade cast by the loaded wagons. A fine film of brown dust covered everyone and everything. Children whined or wept while exhausted women tried to comfort them. The horses stood head-down; the dogs were panting open-mouthed. As Caswallinos walked through, people turned to him and wordlessly held out desperate hands.
‘There’s a river ahead!’ the elder druid called out repeatedly. ‘The gods have promised us water. Not far now. Big river ahead!’
The news spread in ragged cheers. Even the slaves, white savages captured in one battle or another, managed tired smiles in their chains.
Eventually the two druids found Adorix in conference with the cadvridoc, Brennos, as well as Bercanos, head of the Boar clan, and Aivianna, the Hawk woman and moon-sworn warrior. Although none of them wore armour or carried shields, each had their long sword slung in a baldric across their chests, and all four of them had warriors’ hair: bleached with lime until it stood out stiff and straight, as if a private wind had blown it back from their faces. The faces in question were all grim, tight-lipped, narrow-eyed, as they turned to the druid and his apprentice, though Avianna’s was the grimmest of all, scarred as it was by the blue tattoo of the crescent moon on her left cheek.
‘Water straight ahead to the east,’ Caswallinos said. ‘Evandar his very self told me that a big river lies nearby.’
Brennos smiled briefly. The others nodded.
‘I don’t suppose,’ Adorix said, ‘that he had any news of my two cubs.’
‘He didn’t.’ Caswallinos lied smoothly. ‘But Galerinos does. They’re alive up on the mountain. He can lead some horsemen back to them.’
‘There’s no time for that now.’ Bercanos stepped forward. ‘If the savages attack us, our men and horses are barely fit to fight. We’ve got to reach that river.’
Adorix laid his hand on his sword hilt and turned toward him. Aivianna stepped in between them. She stayed silent, merely looked at each in turn, but Adorix took his hand away from the sword hilt and Bercanos moved a good pace away.
‘There’s no time for arguing amongst ourselves, either,’ Brennos said.
The heads of the two clans agreed in sullen mutters. Aivianna’s expression never changed as she returned to her place by the cadvridoc’s side.
‘Evandar brought my apprentice back but not the others,’ Caswallinos said. ‘I don’t know why. The gods are like that, truly. But Gallo here can tell us what happened.’ He cocked a thumb at Galerinos. ‘Tell them the truth, lad.’
‘Just at dawn we rode out to find water,’ Galerinos began. ‘I chanted the prayers and held out my staff, but we rode till the sun was halfway to zenith before my staff began to tremble. It seemed to be tugging toward the hills, so that’s the way we went. We saw a little valley twixt two of the hills where the trees looked fresh and green. You couldn’t see clearly into it, though, and our god sent me an omen about it. Just as we reached the trees a raven flew up, squawking and circling over the valley.’
‘Here!’ Brennos interrupted. ‘Didn’t Rhodorix realize you were riding for an ambush?’
Galerinos felt his stomach clench. He hated to betray his cousin, but Caswallinos was glaring at him, his arms crossed over his chest, in a way that brooked no argument.
‘He didn’t,’ Galerinos said. ‘He led us right into it. I tried to warn him, truly I did, but Rhoddo just spurred his horse forward, and everyone followed him.’
Adorix grunted once, then shook his head. ‘Let them rot, then.’ He held out his hand to Bercanos, who laid his own palm against it.
‘Forgive me,’ the Boar said. ‘My foul temper –’
‘Mine’s no better,’ Adorix said. ‘We’ve got more to worry about at the moment than my stupid son. If he was coward enough to live when his men died, then he can freeze in the hells for all I care. I have other get to take his place.’
‘But –’ Gallo began, then swallowed his words. Arguing with Adorix was a good way to die young. ‘As you wish, honoured one.’
‘Well and good, then.’ Brennos took command. ‘We can’t stand here jawing like a pack of old women. If there’s a river ahead, let’s get on the move. We can’t risk losing our horses.’
‘Let us hope that Belinos and Evandar lend us their aid,’ Caswallinos said and folded his hands with a pious expression on his face, one that Galerinos had seen before, whenever his teacher was hiding something.
Shouting orders, the warleader strode away with the other warriors trotting after. Galerinos turned to Caswallinos. ‘I thought you said Evandar wasn’t a god.’
‘He’s not,’ the old man said, grinning. ‘But they don’t need to know that, do they now? Keep silence, lad, whenever you can, and your life will be a fair bit easier. Now let’s find you a new horse and move out with the wagons. Tonight, however, I want to hear more about this curse of yours.’
The sun crept down the western sky and shone full-strength onto the hillside. Gerontos’s face had turned a dangerous shade of red. ‘If only we had some water,’ he whispered.
‘True spoken,’ Rhodorix said. ‘This cursed stretch of country is all dust and thorns.’
‘I wish we’d stayed by that harbour. We could have built a city there.’
‘The omens weren’t right.’
Gerro nodded, then closed his eyes.
‘It’ll be cooler when the sun goes down,’ Rhodorix said.
Gerro never answered. It’ll be too cold, most likely, Rhodorix thought, and us with not one cloak between us.
As if in answer to his thoughts, a shadow passed across the sun. He looked up to see a lavender cloud, a small smear of colour at first against the blue. The cloud grew larger, sank lower, and formed a perfect sphere of mist. Out of the mist swooped a hawk, an enormous red hawk, shrieking as it glided down toward them. For the briefest of moments it hovered a few feet from the ground, then with a shimmer of silver light Evandar dropped down lightly and stood, back in his more or less human form. The lavender sphere vanished.
‘I’ll take you somewhere safe,’ Evandar said. ‘Can you get your brother onto his feet?’
‘He can’t stand up,’ Rhodorix said. ‘Maybe I can carry him over my back.’
The god frowned, considering Gerontos, who had slumped down against the boulder. Rhodorix had a panicked moment of thinking him dead, but he opened his eyes with a groan.
‘I’ll bring help.’ Evandar snapped his fingers and disappeared.
And how long will that take? Rhodorix wondered if Gerro would live long enough for this promised help to arrive. He scrambled up and stood between his brother and the sun to cast a little shade. He heard Gerontos mutter something and glanced back to see him trying to swat away the flies that were crawling on the blood-soaked bandage.
‘Leave them be,’ Rhoddo said. ‘Save your strength.’
When he returned his gaze to the hillside he saw the lavender mist forming in mid-air. A vast cloud of it hovered in the form of an enormous ship under full if ragged sail, which first settled to the ground, then began to thin out, revealing Evandar and a tall man wearing what seemed to be a woman’s dress, a long tunic, at any rate, with gold embroidery at the collar and hem. Around his waist he wore a belt from which hung a good many pouches. This fellow had the same peculiar ears as Evandar, and his hair was just as yellow, but his cat-slit eyes were a simple grey. He started to speak, saw Gerontos, and trotted forward, brushing past Rhodorix to kneel at the injured man’s side.
The last of the mist-ship blew away. Four stout young men appeared, carrying a cloth litter slung from long poles. They wore plain tunics, belted with leather at the waist. From each belt dangled a long knife in a leather sheath.
‘A healer,’ Evandar said, ‘and his guards.’
‘You have my humble thanks, Holy One,’ Rhodorix felt himself stammering on the edge of tears. ‘My humble undying thanks! I’ll worship you always for this. If I swear a vow, I’ll seal it with your name.’
Evandar smiled in the arrogant way gods were supposed to smile, judging from their statues, and waved one hand in the air in blessing.
The healer pulled a glass vial filled with a golden liquid from one of the pouches at his belt. He slipped one arm under Gerontos’s shoulders and helped him drink, one small sip at a time. Gerontos’s mouth twitched as if he were trying to smile. The healer got to his feet and began barking orders in a language that Rhodorix had never heard before. With a surprising gentleness the guards lifted Gerontos onto the litter. The healer put the vial away, then from another pouch took out a peculiar piece of white stone – a crystal of some sort, Rhodorix realized, shaped into a pyramid. For a long moment the healer stared into it, then nodded as if pleased by something and put the pyramid away.
No time for a question – the lavender mist was forming around them with a blessed coolness. Everyone followed Evandar as he led them uphill, only a few yards, or so it seemed, but when the mist lifted, they were standing on a different mountain, and the sun was setting over its peak. Rhodorix felt as giddy and sick as if he were drunk.
He tipped his head back and stared uphill at a massive fortress above them, huge, far grander than anything the Rhwmanes had built in the homeland. To his exhausted eyes it seemed almost as big as an entire Rhwmani walled town. Over the stone walls he could see towers rising and the slate-covered roof of some long structure in their midst. Beyond, at the peak of the mountain, three huge slabs of stone loomed over the fortress, dwarfing it. The sun had just lowered itself between two of the slabs, so that a long sliver of light flared and gleamed like a knife-blade on the mountainside.
‘Garangbeltangim,’ Evandar said. ‘And safety, at least for now.’ He tipped back his head and laughed in a ringing peal. ‘Indeed, at least for now.’
His laughter lingered, but the god had gone.
As they walked the last few yards, massive wooden gates bound with bronze bars swung open with barely a squeak or puff of dust. Rhodorix looked around him, gaping at everything, as he followed the healer inside. Big slabs of grey and reddish slate covered the courtyard in a pattern of triangles that led to a long central building. Its outer walls gleamed with tiny tiles of blue, white, and green, set in a pattern of half-circles so that the enormous rectangular structure seemed to be rising out of sea-foam. To either end stood towers, built square like Rhwmani structures, but far grander, taller, and the top of a third tower, standing behind the main building, was just visible. Off to each side he could see various small huts and houses. Even the lowliest shed bore a smooth coat of bright-coloured paint.
A number of people were standing around, watching their procession straggle into the courtyard. They all had the same furled ears and cat-slit eyes as the healer; they all wore tunics and sandals like his as well. Off to one side someone was leading a horse around the end of the main building, a stocky warhorse whose coat shone like gold and whose mane and tail flowed like silver. Rhodorix had a brief moment of wondering if he’d died without noticing and now walked in the Otherlands, but his thirst drove the fancy away. Dead men didn’t long for water.
Bells chimed over the courtyard, followed by the louder boom and reverberation of huge metallic gongs. The sound came from the top of the tower to his left. When he looked up, Rhodorix saw men on the roofs, and the gleam of metal swinging as they struck the gongs. Up on the mountain peak the sun slipped a little lower. The long knife-blade of light disappeared. The gongs fell silent as the healer urged his men forward again.
They entered the largest building by a narrow door at one end. More colours, more mosaic walls – they turned down a corridor with walls painted with images of trees and deer, then passed red-curtained alcoves and went through a gilded room into a mostly blue corridor, decorated with a long frieze of circles and triangles. Glowing cylinders topped with flame burned in little tiled alcoves on the walls. In this maze of design and brightness, Rhodorix could barely distinguish what he was seeing, nor could he tell in what direction they walked.
At last the healer ushered them into a small chamber with a narrow plank bed, a round table, a scatter of chairs, and a window open to the air. The men with the litter transferred Gerontos to the planks, then pulled off his hauberk and his boots. They bowed to the healer and left.
Rhodorix was just wondering how to ask for water when four cat-eyed servants came trotting in. He assumed they were servants because they carried plates of bread, silver pitchers, and a tray of golden cups. One of them filled a cup with water and handed it to Rhodorix without being asked. Thirst and dust choked his mouth so badly that he could only smile for thanks. The fellow pointed to the food on the table with a sweep of his arm that seemed to mean ‘help yourself’.
Other servants carried in big baskets and set them down beside the plank bed. The healer took out several sticks with spikes at one end and put them on the table. Onto the spikes he put thick cylinders of wax with a bit of thread coming out of their tops. When he snapped his fingers, the threads caught fire, and a soft glow of light spread through the shadowed room. Rhodorix took a fast couple of steps back. The healer smiled at his surprise, then pointed to the food and water before returning to Gerontos’s side.
Rhodorix drank half a pitcher of water before his head cleared enough for him to consider food. He took a chunk of bread and stood eating it while he watched the healer and two of the servants washing Gerontos’s broken leg. By then his brother had fainted. And a good thing, too, Rhodorix thought when the healer grabbed Gerontos’s ankle with one hand and guided the leg straight with the other. Gerontos woke with the pain, groaned, and fainted again. A servant came forward with a bowl of some thick, reddish substance. At first Rhodorix thought it blood, but the smell told him that it was in fact honey mixed with red wine and some ingredient that made the liquid glisten.
The healer dipped strips of cloth into the mixture, then bound them round the break in the leg, over and over until he’d built up a thick layer. A servant came forward with a bowl of water and held it out while he washed his hands. Another slipped a pillow under Gerontos’s head. At that Gerontos woke again, groaning repeatedly, turning his head this way and that. Rhodorix strode over to the opposite side of the bed from the healer and caught his brother’s hand. Gerontos fell silent and tried to smile at him. His mouth contorted into a painful twist.
Two servants hurried over to help Gerontos drink from a cup of the yellow liquid. A third handed Rhodorix a cup of red wine, which he sipped, watching his brother’s pain ease with every swallow of the yellow drink. The healer himself considered Rhodorix, seemed to be about to speak, then smiled, a little ruefully, as if perhaps remembering that Rhodorix wouldn’t understand a word he said. He went to the doorway and spoke to someone standing just outside. A woman’s voice answered him; then the woman herself strode into the chamber.
She stood by the bed and set her hands on her hips to look Gerontos over while the healer talked on. Now and then she nodded as if agreeing with something he said. Tall, nearly as tall as Rhodorix, she wore her pale hair pulled back into a pair of braids. Under thin brows her eyes were the blue of river ice and deep-set in a face that most likely became lovely when she smiled. At the moment, frowning in thought as she considered Gerontos’s leg, she looked as grim as a druid at a sacrifice. Gerontos looked at Rhodorix and quirked an eyebrow. Once, during Vindex’s ill-fated rebellion, they’d seen a contingent of Belgae warriors, all of them as pale-haired and pale-eyed as this woman.
‘She must be a Belgae woman,’ Rhodorix said.
‘Indeed,’ Gerontos whispered. ‘Unless she’s from Germania.’
Neither the woman or the healer took any notice of their talk. She wore a long tunic, belted at the waist like the healer’s, pinned at one shoulder with a gold brooch in the shape of a bird with outstretched wings. Around her neck hung a cluster of what Rhodorix took to be charms on leather thongs. One of the Belgae wise women, he assumed – he’d heard about them back home in Gallia. Eventually she turned to him and spoke. He understood nothing. All he could do was shake his head and spread his hands to show confusion. Her eyes widened in surprise.
The healer came over to him, made a questioning sort of face, and pointed to his ear.
‘I’m not deaf.’ Rhodorix made a guess at the meaning. He pointed to his own ear and smiled, nodding. ‘I can hear you.’
The healer seemed to understand. He in turn nodded his agreement, then spoke to the woman. They left the chamber together.
‘What was all that?’ Gerontos said.
‘I don’t know for certain,’ Rhodorix said. ‘But I’d guess they were expecting us to understand her talk. They were certainly surprised about somewhat.’ He paused to sip from the cup. ‘This wine is very good.’ He pointed at a servant, then at his brother.
The fellow filled a second cup and brought it over. With Rhodorix’s help, Gerontos raised himself up enough to take a few sips. He sighed and lay back down.
‘Enough for now,’ Gerontos whispered. ‘Go eat. I have to sleep.’
The servants took themselves away. Rhodorix got up and returned to the table, but even though he ate, he was considering suicide. He could go outside to the courtyard, find a corner where no one would see him, and fall upon his sword. Or, if the guards would let him, he could climb one of the high towers and step off into death on the stones below. Death seemed the only honourable act left to him after his failure of the day, yet at the same time, how could he abandon his brother here among these strange folk?
If only Galerinos were still with them, he could ask the young druid to cast omens or deliver some kind of opinion based on the holy laws, but Gallo was far away – safe, or so he hoped. He finished his wine, downed what Gerontos had left, then poured himself more. Lacking a holy man, he sought his answers in drink. After the fourth cupful, the room began dancing around him. Rhodorix lay down on the carpeted floor and slept.
‘I don’t understand,’ Nallatanadario said. ‘If they don’t belong to your people, who are they?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hwilli said. ‘But they certainly didn’t understand a word I said to them.’
The two apprentice healers, one human, one elven, were sitting in Hwilli’s tiny chamber, Hwilli cross-legged on her bed, Nalla on a high stool beside Hwilli’s slant-top lectern. On the walls, frescoes of rose gardens gave the small chamber illusory depth. Distant birds flew in the painted skies. While they discussed the two strangers, resting in a chamber just down the corridor, Nalla kept combing her silvery-pale hair. It tumbled in waves about her slender shoulders and down her back, so different from Hwilli’s own fine, limp hair that would have hung in ugly tendrils, or so Hwilli felt, had she worn hers free like Nalla did.
‘Could Master Jantalaber tell you anything more?’ Nalla said.
‘He thought perhaps they belonged to some northern tribe. With the Meradan on the move like this, their lands might have been attacked, too, and their tribe might have fled south.’ Hwilli shrugged uneasily. ‘If that’s true, there must be thousands of Meradan out there. It makes my flesh crawl, thinking that.’
‘Mine too.’ Nalla looked down at the carved bone comb in her hand. Her fingers clenched tight around it. ‘I wonder sometimes what’s going to happen to us. I truly do.’
Hwilli turned and looked out of the small window, set into the frescoes at the chamber’s end, that looked out to the actual sky. She could just see the tops of the fortress’s towers, gleaming in moonlight. We’ll be safe here, she thought. Won’t we? Nalla shuddered, as if she were wondering the same. She resumed combing her hair, then paused, and with a quick frown shoved the comb into the pouch hanging from her belt.
‘Anyway,’ Hwilli said, ‘the master’s going to ask the Guardians for help. He thinks the crystals Evandar gave him might allow us to talk to the men, since they transfer thoughts and images. But he doesn’t know how they could actually translate our speech.’
