I sprang down, leaving my mare to her own fight, and ran around the snorting horses. Barus was clambering to his feet. His dark face was ugly, no longer like a dog’s but akin now to that of a wild boar brought to bay-all blind fury and the need to inflict harm. He was also fast as a boar, and near as strong. He saw my staff swing at his skull and succeeded in both gaining his feet and moving clear of the blow. My hopes of ending the battle swiftly evaporated. I held the staff in both hands, across my chest, advancing.
Barus roared and swung a double-handed cut; I raised my staff and beat it off. Seasoned hickory is almost as strong as iron, and this pole was bound and tipped with metal: I felt the impact, and so did the jennym. We each paced a step back, feinting, assessing one another.
I said, “A question, Barus-one you failed to answer. Did your mother know your father’s name?”
He gave me no reply save a blow. I said, “It’s common knowledge in the keep, Barus, that you’ll never have Krystin. They laugh at you.”
That sally (crude as the first, I admit; but I was fighting for my life) served its purpose: he screamed and delivered a flurry of blows. I countered, defensive at first, but then with knocks to ribs and forearms. He was a skilled swordsman, and powerful, and I knew that he needed land only one serious cut to take the victory; but I was no laggard with the quarterstaff. Also, he fought enraged, which state-as Keran often enough advised us-consumes energy fast, whilst I fought coldly. It was as when I had gone out against the Sky Lords in Durbrecht: I perceived Barus as an obstacle, a thing insensate, a receptacle for my own cold anger.
We drew apart. He was panting. I saw spittle slick on his chin. I said, “Krystin told me she’d as soon bed you as-”
The sentence went unfinished. With a howl of naked hatred, Barus launched a terrible attack. The long sword seemed weightless in his hands. It pounded against my guard, the staff vibrating, sparks flying as edged steel struck the metal banding. I retreated, aware that at my back two horses snorted. I thought they no longer fought, but I had no wish to find myself driven between them or against the hooves of either. I thought my mare as likely to kick me as my opponent. I deflected a blow and riposted, catching the jennym’s elbow. I saw his face pale at that and gave him two more steps, then cracked his elbow again.
He cursed, and his next cut was weaker. I risked a swift sidelong glance and saw the horses on the grass beside the road. They, it seemed, had settled their differences and now grazed between wary looks at us two. I backed a little way across the trail. Barus, his teeth bared, came at me. I parried and succeeded in tapping his elbow a third time. Could I but get past his guard to deliver a strong enough blow, I could shatter the bone. I thought that I had best not kill him, lest it be my head Yrdan took. Even so, I was tempted: I felt, now, that I had the victory in sight.
I retreated almost to the meadow, feigning weariness. I let the quarterstaff fall a little under the onslaught, as if the pole grew heavy in my hands. I aped the jennym’s panting. Barus glowered, his eyes now quite mad. He grunted a hoarse battle cry and lifted his blade high. I watched it rise and cringed. I saw triumph anticipated in his eyes. I sprang forward, my staff crisscrossing before me, fast. It landed twice, hard against his ribs, and then I swung the pole up, taking his descending cut and forcing his blade away to the side. For an instant we looked directly into one another’s eyes. His were wide and shocked. I reversed my stroke, dropping the staff to hook his knees. I knocked his legs from under him, and before his back touched the dirt of the trail I swung the staff against his skull.
I might have killed him with that blow, but I held back. I’d no wish to make an enemy of Yrdan, to find myself posted outlaw. Even so, I saw his eyes and mouth spring wide, then close. The sword fell at his side, and I stamped a boot down, trapping the blade. Barus groaned and stirred: he was remarkably strong. I tapped him, almost gently, on the point of his chin, and he lay still.
For a while I stood poised to strike again, thinking he perhaps feigned unconsciousness. When he made no further move, I kicked the sword away and stooped beside him. A colorful bruise was spreading down his right temple and cheek. I checked the pulses in his neck and wrists and listened a moment to his stertorous breath, assuring myself he lived. Then I rose and went to his horse.
The bay stallion showed me the whites of its eyes, pawing ground as I approached. I set my staff down and murmured to the beast, calming it enough that it allowed me to take its halter and lead it to where its master lay. I took Barus’s sword and used it as a tethering peg. Then I rummaged swiftly over the saddle, finding cords there sufficient to my purpose. I returned to Barus and hauled him up. He was heavy, and he moaned softly as I got him on his feet and lifted his arms across the saddle. The stallion stamped and nickered as I pushed the insensible jennym across its back. I lashed him in place and secured his sword. Then I looped the horse’s reins around the saddlehorn and slapped the beast’s rump. The stallion snorted a protest and cantered back the way it had come, back toward Tryrsbry. Barus flopped like a sack.
I watched until I was confident the animal would take him home and then went to my gray mare.
She looked up from her grazing and snapped yellow teeth at my hand as I took the reins. I forgave her: she had proven her usefulness this day. She showed no sign of wounds, and so I collected my staff and once more climbed astride, turning her up the slope.
As I rode away, I set to wondering how Barus would feel when he woke. I hoped he should regain consciousness before he reached the keep: his embarrassment would have been a thing to savor. I wondered what explanation he would offer. I realized that my melancholy had entirely disappeared. I began to laugh aloud.
When I reached Cymbry, I was met by the commur-magus of that keep. He was a thin, bald man, Cuentin by name, and he greeted me with a smile. He was dressed extravagantly for his calling and his sex, and I discerned a subtle rouging of his cheeks, a touch of kohl about his eyes. Rings glittered on his fingers.
“You’ll be Daviot the Storyman, I’d guess,” he said. “I’ve a message for you.”
I climbed down from the saddle, snatching the gray mare’s bridle as Cuentin made to stroke her neck and she made to bite his hand.
“She’s of somewhat sour temper,” I warned him. “A message, you say?”
He nodded, moving a few cautious steps clear of the horse. His eyes were so dark as to be almost devoid of white, but they sparkled with amusement as they studied my face. He said, “From Tryrsbry,” as if he savored his news and would draw its imparting out as long as possible. “From the commur-mage Krystin.”
I waited with ill-assumed patience. What message would Krystin send? I had not thought to see her or hear from her again. Like all those others from my past, all those who had shaped and formed my life, I had believed her left behind, living only in my memory. I had chosen to look ahead-I was not sure I wanted a message from Krystin.
Cuentin said, “It appears that the very day you quit Tryrsbry the jennym of Yrdan’s warband was set upon by brigands. Seven or eight, he claims-he was fortunate to survive.”
I held my face straight. I said, “Seven or eight, eh? He was indeed fortunate.”
Cuentin said, “Yes,” and I could see he struggled not to laugh. “A very strange attack, it was.”
I began to like this commur-magus. I chose to play his game and assumed an expression of curiosity. “How so, strange?” I asked him.
He said, “Well, as the jennym-Barus is his name, but you’d know that, I suppose-has it, he was out riding alone, when these seven or eight brigands sprang from ambush. He gave a fine account of himself, slaying at least three and wounding more, but then he was clubbed down and lost his senses. He remembers nothing after that.”
“Nothing?” I inquired.
“Nothing.” Cuentin paused, laughter hidden behind the clearing of his throat. Then he said, “It appears these brigands then secured him on his horse and set the beast free. It returned-by Krystin’s account-to Tryrsbry Keep with the valiant Barus slung across the saddle … How did she put it? Yes-like a sack of potatoes. Now, is that not strange? I wonder why these ferocious bandits let him live? And why they failed to take his horse? Think you there’s a story there, Daviot?”
Solemnly, I answered him, “It would seem so, Cuentin.” “But you’re southward bound,” he said, “so perhaps you’ll never learn it.”
“No,” I said. “Likely not.”
He nodded. “Krystin also said to bid you the God’s speed.”
I said, “For which, my thanks-to her and you.”
He smiled wide, his eyes moving from my face to the staff set beside my saddle. “That’s a sturdy pole,” he remarked casually. “I imagine it must serve you well.”
“It does,” I said. “At need.”
He said, “Yes,” and began to laugh aloud.
I could not help but join him, and he took my arm in a companionable way as we traversed the yard. As we came closer to the stables, he stifled his laughter and said more seriously, “I’ve encountered Barus a time or two, and he’s a surly fellow. Still, it does not do to spread rumors about a jennym, so perhaps we’d best keep this tale betwixt we two, eh?”
“Barus,” I said, “is not a fellow I care to think of much.”
“No,” Cuentin agreed. “You’ll find our Tevach more genial.” He smiled mischievously. “Perhaps because he’s no desire for me.”
“Nor I,” I said, not wishing there to be any misunderstanding between us.
Cuentin took no offense at this, but raised his hands in mock objection. “Fear not,” he said. “I understand from Krystin that your tastes lie elsewhere. Albeit they tend toward we sorcerers, eh?”
I smiled and nodded, waving back the Changed stableman who came to tend my mare. I warned him of her temperament, and he left me to unsaddle her, contenting himself with the preparation of a stall.
I was glad of the interruption, for Cuentin’s news disturbed me somewhat. Just as I had once before grown aware of societies overlapping one another-of Changed living amongst Truemen, simultaneously seen and invisible-so now I perceived that the sorcerers were a further layer in these complex, secretive strata. I had known my arrival and departure should be reported from keep to keep, but only that. It now seemed the sorcerers exchanged more detailed messages, gossip even. Perhaps it was only Krystin’s fondness for me that had prompted her to tell Barus’s tale to Cuentin, but it came unnervingly fast on the order to quit Tryrsbry, which had come soon after my questioning her about the wild Changed. I wondered if my progress was monitored. Perhaps I traveled under the cloud of my affair with Rwyan, my friendship with Urt. Perhaps the interest in the Changed I had shown in Durbrecht, my disobedience of the unwritten rules, yet branded me a rebel. It was an odd sensation to consider that I might be “watched” in this fashion; it was irksome to think that I could do nothing about it-was my burgeoning suspicion correct, I could hardly question Cuentin or any of his kind. To do so would only reinforce whatever doubts existed about my probity. If such doubts existed and my sudden unease was not solely a product of egotism.
I set to currying the mare, barely aware of her irritable snapping, instinctively avoiding the sudden lurches with which she sought to trap me against the bars of the stall. I finished tending my ungrateful horse and turned to the patient Cuentin.
“So,” he said, “do I bring you to Gunnar.”
I shouldered my saddlebags, took up my staff, and went with him into the tower of the keep.
By the time we found the aeldor, I had learned that he was wed to Dagma, had three sons-Donal, Connar, and Gustan-and a single daughter, Maere; that Dagma was pregnant, all three sons betrothed, and that Maere possessed a temper of erratic nature. Cuentin was a font of information.
I found the aeldor and his wife a solemn, even dour couple, and their sons not much different. By contrast, Maere, who was little more than a child, was a lively girl. All were dark, and all save Maere seemed to me of that West Coast character I had, overall, come to expect. Still, they made me welcome enough, and I remained in Cymbry some days.
While I was there, I was a dutiful Storyman. I asked no untoward questions, pried not at all, but only told my tales and thanked them for their praise. What questions I did ask were entirely within the aegis of my calling. I decided that if I were indeed monitored, it was not by the aeldors but by their sorcerers.
And if that were the case, Cuentin was a most subtle observer. I spent much time in his company and found him amusing and informative. From him I learned that the Sky Lords’ little airboats were seen with increasing frequency all over Dharbek, seeming not to concentrate on any particular area but randomly across the land, whilst the larger vessels had been seen not at all this year. With the aid of Gunnar’s jennym (who did indeed prove a most likable fellow), Cuentin had slain three groups of Kho’rabi. He spoke openly of the elementals harnessed to the Sky Lords’ purpose, and it came to me that not everyone saw the ethereal creatures so clearly as did I. It was Cuentin’s opinion that the blood gift that made him a sorcerer and me a Mnemonikos also granted us the ability to perceive the aerial spirits more readily. I wondered if that same blood rendered us more aware of the subtle currents flowing through our world, of the existence of societies within societies. That thought I kept to myself.