Roric picked his way through the oak woods. It was an overcast night and hard to see, but the cold damp air was exhilarating. He sucked it into his lungs as he proceeded slowly in the direction of the castle. He did not know if the Wanderers would try for him again, since the “third force” had reached him first this time, or how King Hadros would react to his return, but very soon he would see Karin again.
He smiled in the darkness. He could understand why Karin had never told him about the faeys. He and she had come to trust each other so recently, and had had so little time for conversation in the short weeks since they had first declared their love for each other, that she might not have felt easy in telling him about these foolish friends from her childhood. But he had a message for her from them. They were becoming worried because they had not seen her in a long time.
He stopped, a hand against the rough bark of a tree, listening. Something was moving across the ground ahead of him, something heavy. It rustled the grass and twigs and made a curious spongy sound as it came. He drew his sword, slowly so as to make no noise, and put his back to the tree.
And then the clouds above him lifted for a moment, and the moon shone down on the oak woods, several days short of the full.
Crouched on the hill before him was the troll.
Mostly head and mouth and long powerful arms, with a small soft body that it had to drag along when out of the stream, it lay on the hill looking at him with eyes bigger around than ale horns. “What have you done with my horse, Roric No-man’s son?”
Its voice was deep and indistinct, soft like its body but packed with menace like its teeth.
Roric turned his blade so that the moonlight flashed on it. “Get out of my way, troll, unless you wish to test my steel. I have no time for riddles and games of chance tonight.”
The clouds obscured the moon again, and Roric could hear the troll laughing. Its laugh was much worse than its voice, wild, irrational and threatening. But something else was wrong. The moon had been just past the full when he galloped away from Gizor and the manor, and he could have sworn that was only a week ago, not nearly four weeks. How long had he really been gone?
“You should know mortal steel will not be much use against a troll here, ” came the soft dark voice again.
“It will slow you down if you intend to eat me.”
“No, not tonight, Roric No-man’s son. I caught a deer last week, and I am still feeding nicely. Did you never wonder why I didn’t eat that horse?”
Roric had been about to rush past. Now that he knew where the troll was, he should be able to get by it and on to the castle well ahead of it. The troll was certainly dangerous, and no children had ever been allowed out of the castle alone after dark, but it moved slowly enough that Hadros had never felt it a threat worth rousting out from under his bridge. Rather, he left it there as an additional guard to his castle.
But instead of hurrying away Roric went still, judging the troll’s position by its snorting breath and the squishing sounds it made when it moved. It might know something he should have known himself long ago. “Goldmane is in the realm of the Wanderers,” he said slowly. “Is that where he came from originally?”
At the time, two years ago, he had not questioned where the troll had acquired the horse. All he had seen as he stood by the troll’s bridge at twilight was the magnificence of the stallion. It had seemed unsurprising that a creature of voima like the troll should have it. All that was surprising was that the troll had been willing to engage in riddles and a game of dice for Goldmane-the dice had come back to his hand wet and sticky from the troll’s-without insisting that if Roric lost he should be eaten on the spot.
And now that he thought about it, he had beaten the troll rather easily. It must surely have known the old riddles about the egg and about the creature that goes on four legs, then two, then three.
The troll chuckled. “I am not sure if the one who sent you your horse originally will have time or attention to send you another now that you’ve lost him, especially with the change is coming.”
Roric moved along the sandy hill a short way to keep his distance, thinking hard. The trolls of the Wanderers’ realm, the “third force,” must already have had their eyes on him two years ago and deliberately given him his horse. It was Goldmane, he thought with dismay, who had taken the bit in his teeth and gone through the stone gateway out of Hadros’s kingdom while he was still hesitating. If he could not trust the stallion, he was back to his own voima and the little bone charm.
But it was also Goldmane who had carried him away from the horned warriors and had brought him home.
And he had something else he needed to know. “When you say my steel will harm you but little here, do you mean it would do greater damage in the Wanderers’ realm?”
The troll did not answer his question and did not even laugh. “Be proud of your association with the Wanderers if you like, Roric No-man’s son,” it said indistinctly. “But be careful wandering these hills at night if I am not well fed.” It gave a booming belch, and then it did chuckle again.
Roric made a wide circle around it, his sword still in his hand. Ahead of him through the trees he could see faint lights from Hadros’s castle. Soon he would learn if he had really been gone for close to four weeks-or, he thought grimly, even for several months.
An oak tree around the back of the castle reached a branch toward the top of the wall. Roric scrambled up it, as he had many times since he was a boy, coming home after the gates were already shut and not wanting to have to knock and explain himself. With luck, he would find Karin before he had to talk to anyone else.
Hadros had neglected things like the oak branch since the end of the war, he thought with a hard smile as he dropped inside the wall. If he had been a scout for an invading army he would have had the gates open for his companions in no time.
Even in the dark, he knew the castle like he knew his own skin. He slipped across the courtyard, hearing the voices of maids and of housecarls from the hall. Flickering firelight came through the open doorway. He was slightly surprised, because normally the maids did not sit with the warriors and housecarls in the evening, instead retreating to the weaving house or the bake house. He glanced in both in search of Karin and found them dark and empty. In the bath house, even the stones were cold.
And certain voices seemed to be missing. He stood close by the doorway into the hall, listening. He could not hear the king’s deep voice, which usually rose over all the other men’s. And now that he thought about it, he also did not hear Valmar or Gizor One-hand, though both of them might long sit silent on the bench in the evening. But he thought he heard Nole, the king’s youngest son, his voice high and excited.
As he hesitated outside the hall, he heard in the distance the sound of hooves. He slipped across the courtyard again to look out through the crack along the edge of the gate. A band of men, carrying torches that lit up the night, were riding up the hill toward the castle. Their harnesses jingled, and all of them had shields slung from their saddles.
And the man in the lead was King Hadros. Roric stepped back into the shadows with a smile as the king pounded his fist on the gate. He would let the king enter his hall before surprising him with his own return.
“I am home!” roared the king. “Open the gate!”
The housecarls poured out of the hall. “They’re home! They’re home from the All-Gemot!”
The All-Gemot. Roric had completely forgotten about it. It was still ten days or so in the future when he rode away, which meant he really had been gone under a month, not the entire summer. That at least was a relief. He wondered if he would have accompanied Hadros if he had been here; he had been among the king’s warriors at the All-Gemot the last few years.
The big gate swung open, and the king and his warriors came through. Gizor One-hand was among them. Roric mingled with the back of the crowd as Dag and Nole hurried forward to greet their father, and as housecarls took the horses and baggage. Roric thought it a little surprising that no one seemed to notice him.
“But where is Valmar?” he heard Dag ask. “And where is Karin?”
“They are in Kardan’s kingdom,” said Hadros. From his tone it was impossible to tell if he was pleased or not. “Karin will stay, because some day she will be sovereign queen there.”
“And Valmar?”
“I shall tell you when I’ve had something to eat. You!” to one of the maids. “Is there no one here who will offer a man food in his own home? Karin would have had something hot ready for us,” he grumbled, heading into the hall.
King Kardan. That was Karin’s father. Roric went into the hall with the rest, forgetting to keep himself hidden although still no one seemed to pay him any attention. She had told him, of course, that she was her father’s heiress now, something the faeys seemed to find very exciting, but it was like having half the castle suddenly disappear to have her gone.
Tonight he would not bother the king, hungry and tired as he was. But in the morning he would ask to be released from his oath of loyalty to him. Since Hadros had tried to have him killed anyway, he should be happy to have him go. Then he would go to Karin and offer himself to her as her warrior as well as her lover.
He tried uneasily to remember where Kardan’s kingdom was. He knew it was somewhere across the channel, but he had never crossed the channel in his life.
The king’s younger sons asked about Valmar again once Hadros and the warriors who had accompanied him had wolfed down bread and cheese and stewed mushrooms and had started the ale horn around for the second time.
“Well,” said the king slowly, leaning back on the bench with his elbows behind him on the table. “Valmar will stay in Kardan’s kingdom this summer with Karin. In a few weeks I shall return there with suitable betrothal gifts, and they shall be married after the harvest.”
There was a shocked silence. “I’ve gotten back just in time,” thought Roric.
The king’s younger sons were nearly as surprised as he was. “Did- Did you decide for them, Father?” Dag asked at last, hesitantly as though fearing his father was about to choose a wife for him as well.
“No, although I am well pleased with their decision.” The king showed his teeth in a smile for a second. “It seems they had fallen in love themselves, something Karin, that sly lass, tried to keep from me. Valmar,” with a shrug, “was happy enough to fall in with her plans.”
“But she does not love Valmar!” cried Roric. “She is in love with me!”
No one appeared to hear him.
The maids and housecarls began talking at once about the upcoming marriage, until Hadros looked up with a frown. “Enough of this chatter. I shall not have those who serve the royal family engage in idle talk about us. Karin and Valmar will be married here and live here at least half the year, until her father dies. Or I,” mostly under his breath. “That is all you need to know.”
The men started drifting off toward the loft house, some of them still speculating-and once they were out of Hadros’s hearing, in language he would never have tolerated-about how far Karin’s and Valmar’s love had progressed. The consensus seemed to be that Valmar was quite a lad to have won the cool princess.
Roric went up to the king, who was yawning now and pulling off his boots. “I meant to wait until tomorrow to speak to you,” he said, “but I can wait no longer.”
Hadros looked straight through him and unbuckled his sword belt.
Roric leaned against the wall for support. No wonder no one had said anything to him. No one could see or hear him. He had returned from the Wanderers’ realm but returned in such a form that he might as well not be here.
He wandered out of the hall, picking up a piece of cheese and eating it distractedly as he went-at least food was still real to him. “But the troll could see me,” he thought.
How far did this extend? Would others still be able to feel him? Would a sword still cut him?
He followed the warriors and housecarls up the ladder to the men’s loft. Someone bumped against him in the dark and said, “Excuse me.” So he could still be felt then, even if not seen.
Exhausted and shaken, he stretched out in the straw. Invisible, he would have to stow aboard a ship across the channel in the hope that once there he could find Karin and her kingdom even though no one would hear when he asked directions. But what good would it do him to be there, the silent and unseen observer, if Karin and Valmar really were in love?
He awoke to the sound of his name. “Roric! What are you doing here?”
He sat up abruptly. Early morning sun came through the small window. One of the warriors who had accompanied King Hadros leaned on his elbow next to him. “I didn’t see you last night! Did you come back while we were gone? Did you really meet the Wanderers?”
“Can you see me?” Roric demanded.
“Of course I can see you,” with a laugh.
So he was back. The lords of voima only knew what had happened to him, but at least it was over. He jumped up. “I have to talk to the king, find out more about this marriage between Valmar and the Princess Karin.”
“I can probably tell you more than Hadros is likely to.” Roric sat down again slowly. “You know he always treated the princess very delicately, as though even her ears were made out of glass. Not that he minded her doing all the work to direct his household! But she seems to have decided to take matters into her own hands as soon as she was out of the kingdom. I’d heard, of course, of sovereign queens with a whole string of lovers, who still profess their purity and keep serious suitors dangling, but I’d never believed it before.”
“But what happened?” asked Roric through cold lips. This could not be Karin they were discussing.
“The second night we were there, she took young Valmar with her on a ride up into the hills and did not come back until the next morning. I saw them when they returned, and I don’t think there can be much doubt what happened,” with a chuckle.
Roric kept his hand from his knife by sheer will.
“I think King Hadros moved fast to make sure his son wasn’t just one more in a string of lovers, by getting her to agree to their marriage. But I don’t think he’s made a formal offer to her father yet; that’s why we have to go back in a few weeks. If you come along, you’ll see for yourself.
“But what about you?” the man added. “Was that really someone with no back? And where did you go?”
But Roric was no longer there. He went down the ladder in one long jump and strode across the courtyard. Since Valmar was not yet of age, he had not yet sworn himself to him, and no oath would keep him from killing him.
Roric had almost forgotten his own voyage to the Wanderers’ realm in the news about Karin, and he was not prepared for the stunned face Hadros turned on him when he interrupted the king in the middle of his porridge and beer.
“No, of course I did not run away,” he said quickly. “I’ve been in the land of the Wanderers, though it turned out it was not a Wanderer who summoned me. But I intend to leave this kingdom now to cross the channel, and I ask to be freed of my loyalty to you.”
The king stared at him as though he had not understood a word, then very slowly began to smile. “Both Valmar and Karin tried to persuade me you had gone with the Wanderers, that the lords of voima might really take a personal interest in people like you and me. Perhaps I should have believed them.” He reached out abruptly to clap Roric on the shoulder. “How does it feel to be a warrior of voima out of the oldest tales?”
“No, you do not understand,” said Roric. “One thing I did learn in the land of the immortals is that they are not creatures of honor and glory-or at least not the ones I was with. I never spoke with the Wanderers themselves. There is much more purpose in life here as a mortal than there could ever be in that realm.”
“Are you sure you were not hiding in the woods this whole time?” asked the king with a gleam in his eye, as though not quite daring to believe him.
“No, of course not! I shall tell you all about that realm some day-the fields are rich with grain, and the sun never sets. But right now I am going to Kardan’s kingdom.”
“Of course you can accompany me when I go in a few weeks. I need to start assembling suitable betrothal gifts.”
This was becoming as frustrating as trying to talk to the beings of the “third force.” “I am going now, ” said Roric as distinctly as he could. “I would prefer you to release me from my oath before I go so that I can swear myself to Karin’s service, but if you do not I shall go anyway.”
“And why are you so eager to go there now?” Hadros asked suspiciously.
Roric was not about to tell the king he intended to kill his oldest son, but at this point he scarcely cared if he guessed. “Because I love Karin.”
“Out!” roared the king to the others in the hall, who had been following the conversation with intrigued expressions. “All of you, out!” They fled in panic, and Hadros jumped up to slam the door after them.
The hall was dim now, lit only by the smoke-hole and the small windows up in the eaves. Hadros sat down again, favoring one leg and breathing hard.
“You came to me with this nonsense last month. I told you then to forget the whole idea, that Karin would not wed a fatherless man.”
“And you were furious enough,” said Roric, still standing, his hand on his hilt, “that you told Gizor you would not mind if I was dead.”
Hadros started to jump up again, then changed his mind. “Threatening you has not, it appears, taught you sense,” he said with steely calm, but then for a second Roric thought he smiled. “Sit down so we can face each other at eye level.”
When Roric sat down cautiously at the far end of the bench, the king continued, “You are my sworn man, and I am your sworn lord. Gizor overreacted to something I said in anger. Let us not allow that princess make either of us kill the other.”
“I love ‘that princess.’ You tell me a man without a father should not aspire so high, but she loves me herself. A princess can marry any man she chooses.”
King Hadros was still breathing hard. “Maybe you did not hear,” he said quietly, as though not wanting his words to carry outside the hall. “She has taken Valmar for her lover.” Roric shut his eyes for a second to try to stay calm but did not interrupt. “I could not allow Valmar, any more than you, to speak to her while she was still a hostage here, because it was my responsibility to send her home to her father as pure and unfettered as she came to me. He paid the tribute faithfully each year, and I do not war on girls.
“But now- Now that she is a royal heiress and home again, she can make her own decisions. She has many better men to choose from than a warrior without kin. And she has chosen my son.”
Roric clenched his fists. “If you told him- If you told him to take her by the strong hand, then even if I am your sworn man, I-”
King Hadros snorted, and Roric caught again that very fleeting, very strange expression, almost as though the king was pleased. “Not at all. I think it was her idea. Forget her, lad! Do not waste your strength thinking of women. Think instead of this.
“Valmar can afford to marry young. He shall be king here someday, unless that new bride of his leads him such a merry chase that I outlive him! But you, Roric, you cannot tie yourself down. You have grown into the most formidable of my warriors, but you need to use that power to win a realm for yourself. You know you have the strength and the voima within you to be as good a lord as most of the Fifty Kings.”
Roric glanced at him from under his eyebrows; Hadros looked concerned now, even fatherly. “Wisdom, they say, is for old men,” Roric said slowly, “but action is for the young. But I can’t just act as a housecarl or even dependent warrior after you brought me up as your foster-son, and I also can’t act like a man with a family behind him. So what do you wisely recommend?”
“There are always thrones to be won by the valorous,” said Hadros. “Several of the Fifty Kingdoms sent no one to the Gemot this year, and I am sure even now there are second sons preparing their warships to see if the region might be ready for a new lord.”
“I had thought,” said Roric bitterly, “that the lords of voima might have a place for me.”
“That too,” said Hadros quickly. “Now, if you want a ship of your own the best I can do is lend you one of mine, and I’ll let you have a few warriors. How would you like Gizor One-hand?”
Roric stared for a moment, then started to laugh. “Are you still trying to get me killed, or is this one more challenge by which I prove my manhood? No, Hadros,” rising to his feet, “if the Wanderers still want me they will be able to find me, and if they do not I see no reason to attack an unsuspecting kingdom. I simply do not believe you that Karin loves Valmar rather than me. Tomorrow-no, today-I shall leave for Kardan’s kingdom to see her myself. I would prefer you to release me from my loyalty to you first.”
The king rose stiffly, glaring. “Valmar is my son and heir. You are pledged to him through your pledge to me. And I do not release you from anything!”
“Then I forswear my loyalty to you!” He tugged at the ring Hadros had given him when they first swore their oaths to each other, the ring the Weaver would not take. This time he got it off. He held it in his hand for a second, breathing hard, then hurled it at the king’s feet. “And I defy you as an untrue lord!”
Roric slammed out of the hall and rushed toward the stables, half expecting Hadros to shout for his warriors. But there was no sound behind him.
Also no Goldmane in the stables. He saddled one of the geldings as rapidly as he could. No time to go back to the loft for his small store of possessions. The knife the Weaver had returned to him should buy him passage if he could find a ship going to Kardan’s kingdom.
He galloped through the courtyard, hooves echoing, out the gate, down the hill and across the troll’s bridge. This was a fast horse, one of the fastest in the kingdom after his stallion. But there was no sign of pursuit.
Twenty miles along the coast was the little market port where Hadros sold his horses every year. There should be a ship in the harbor there, Roric thought, willing to take him. A mile from the castle he saw a raven perched in a tree, watching his approach with its head cocked to one side. Roric pulled up hard. He would send Karin a raven-message if the bird would carry it. It would take him at least two days’ traveling to reach her, and if she had turned to Valmar in despair, thinking him gone forever, he wanted to let her know he was coming.
He whistled to the bird, trying to remember just what one said when speaking to ravens.