Bristling Wood (15 page)

“True enough. But what if you came across from the west, right by Cannobaen?”

“Perfect! That’s exactly where I want to go.”

“Well and good, then. How many head of stock do you have?”

“Only one horse and a mule.”

“Oh, well now, that’s no trouble at all. You see, I’ve got a cattle boat that’ll hold a hundred head easy, but we’ll be running empty on the westward trip.”

“I think I begin to understand. You’ve found a less than patriotic Eldidd man who’s selling you war horses for the Cerrmor army.”

“Not an Eldidd man.” Cabydd leaned close to whisper. “Some of the Westfolk. Ever heard of them? They’re a strange lot. They crop their babies’ ears like calves, and they speak this language that’d break your jaw, but they raise beautiful horses. But best of all, they hate the men of Eldidd with a passion, so they sell at good prices to supply Eldidd’s enemies.”

Nevyn caught his breath. Although he knew that the elves never forgot a grudge, he was surprised at how far they would go to satisfy one.

On the next night, Nevyn went down to the dark, silent harbor at about the middle of the third watch, when the tide was turning to run out. At the end of a long wooden pier, muffled lanterns winked with a narrow beam beside the squat shape of the cattle boat. Nevyn coaxed his animals across the gangplank and settled them in solitary splendor in the hold, then came back up on deck. Cabydd showed him the low cabin, built on deck like a hut, that they would share: two narrow bunks bolted to the wall, and a tiny table and bench bolted to the floor.

“The lads sleep on deck, but we do put up an old tent if it rains,” Cabydd remarked. “The ship has to look shabby, you see, and I have to look poor.” He shuddered briefly. “Let’s pray to Mannanan ap Lier to keep the Eldidd galleys away! Once we pass Cerrmor, I’ll pick up an escort—you’ll see—but I’ve no desire to find myself in the middle of a sea battle.”

Even though the wind was brisk, it took them two full days to reach Cerrmor in the lumbering, awkward boat. They never put into the harbor, because a sleek Cerrmor war galley was already waiting for them. Cabydd ordered the sails down and let the boat drift while the galley manoeuvered alongside and grappled on. The rowers, all free men and marines, rested at their oars while their captain made the precarious jump up to the cattle boat’s deck.

“We’ll follow the usual plan,” he said to Cabydd. “You stay about fifteen miles out to sea. We’ll follow a parallel course, just in sight of you. We’ll meet at the usual harbor near the Westfolk’s camp.”

“Done, then, but come in our way every now and then so I can see that we haven’t lost you.”

As long as they were in Deverry waters, the two ships sailed close together, but about noon of the next day, Cabydd and his crew turned the cattle boat’s clumsy nose out to sea and wallowed along against the tide until the galley’s captain hailed them and told them they’d gone far enough out. Although Cabydd turned again, the galley kept going, heading out to sea. From that point on, Cabydd spent most of his time in the bow, keeping watch himself rather than trusting one of his men.

Four long anxious days and nights on the open sea brought them finally far enough west to turn back inland. Soon the Cerrmor galley joined them, and they sailed together to a tiny harbor, little more than a bite out of the chalk cliffs, with a short, rickety pier. Although the cattle boat edged in beside it, the galley headed straight for the sandy beach. As the high carved prow scraped on land, the marines jumped over the side, grabbed the gunwales in well-trained unison, and ran her up onto the sand.

“Well, Nevyn,” Cabydd said. “Will you shelter on board tonight?”

“My thanks, but it’s just a bare hour past noon. I’ll be on my way.”

As soon as Nevyn got his horse and mule on deck, they smelled land and practically bolted for it. He led them across the soft sand to the scrubby grassland just beyond the beach, then returned to fetch his saddles and mule packs. A couple of the sailors helped him carry the gear over.

“Look.” One of the lads pointed. “Westfolk.”

On golden horses two men and a woman were riding up, sitting easy in their elaborately stamped and tasseled leather saddles, their pale hair like moonlight to their mounts’ sun. The sailors dumped Nevyn’s gear near his stock, then ran back toward their ship as if they thought the elves would eat them or suchlike. When Nevyn called out a friendly greeting in Elvish, the woman turned her horse and trotted over, though the two men continued on to meet the marines.

“Greeting, elder one,” she said in the same tongue. “You speak too well to be a merchant.”

“No, I’m not. I’m a friend of Aderyn of the Silver Wings. Do you know him?”

“I know of him, but never has the honor been mine to meet him. Do you study the moonland lore, too?”

“Yes. I’m going to be traveling east from here, going to Eldidd. Will I be safe on the road?”

“A man like you is always safe among the People, but watch out for the Eldidd swine. You never know what they’ll do.”

“Oh yes.” Nevyn agreed for politeness’ sake. “I’m surprised you’ll trade with my people at all.”

“The longer the war goes on, the more Eldidd men die. Besides, they won’t be trying to take our lands as long as there’s fighting to the east.” She raised her hand in mock salute. “May there be a king in Cerrmor for a hundred years!”

Although he was planning on going to Eldidd eventually, Nevyn’s real destination lay just to the west of the border, where out to sea rise the three drowned peaks that form the islands of Wmmglaedd. Nevyn rode along the sea cliffs through meadows of tall, windswept grass for the rest of that day and on into the next, when he reached the low hills where neither men nor elves lived. On the third day, he came through a narrow pass to a wide, rocky beach, where the slow waves washed over gravel with a sad mutter, as if the sea were endlessly talking to itself. A scant two miles offshore, he saw the dark rise of the main island against the silver glitter of the Southern Sea.

Since the tide was at its full, Nevyn had to wait before he could cross over. He led his animals down to the two stone pillars that marked the entrance to the stone causeway, still underwater at the moment, and watched the waves lapping at the carved notches. Sure enough, the tide was turning, as each wave fell a little lower han the one before. Crying and mewling, seabirds swooped down as if to take a look at him, the graceful gulls, the occasional osprey, and the ungainly pelicans who were sacred to the god Wmm.

As he idly watched the birds, Nevyn thought over the job ahead of him, convincing the priests of the Water Temple to aid the dweomer in the work of healing the torn kingdom. He was oppressed by doubts; thinking about his elaborate scheme in cold blood made it seem daft.

As the waves fell back, the long causeway emerged, streaming water like a silver sea snake. Nevyn waited until the sun and wind had dried it off, then led his balky stock across. Snorting, they picked their hooves up high on the unfamiliar footing. Ahead the island rose up, about ten miles long and seven wide, with a low hill standing in the midst of meadows of coarse sea grass. Since the day was sunny (a rare thing at Wmmglaedd), he could just pick out the temple buildings themselves as he went across. At the end of the causeway stood a stone arch, carved with panels of interlace and roundels decorated with pelicans, and an inscription: “Water covers and reveals all things.”

Just as Nevyn left the causeway for solid land, a young priest came hurrying across the meadow to meet him. A blond lad of about sixteen, he was dressed in dark brigga and a linen overshirt of an ordinary cut, but on the yokes of the shirt, where a lord’s blazon would go, were orange pelicans.

“Welcome, good traveler. What brings you to the water temple of Wmm?”

“I need the help of the oracles of the god. My name is Nevyn.”

“And mine’s Cinrae. The god gives oracles to all who ask.”

The temple complex was a good mile away across the windblown meadow. As they walked along, Cinrae said not a word more, and Nevyn wondered about him and his reasons for choosing this lonely life so young. He was a good-looking boy, though his slender face was chapped and red from the continual sea wind, but his blue eyes were oddly distant, a bit wistful, as if he felt that ordinary life had nothing to offer him. In the shelter of the hill rose a high stone broch and, scattered around it, some storage sheds, two small round houses, and a stables. A few wind-gnarled trees cast small patches of shade; a few flowers struggled to bloom in the shelter of walls. The wind sighed around the buildings and swirled the sandy dust in a perpetual scour. Out beyond the complex Nevyn could see kitchen gardens, a field of barley, and some white cows at pasture. Although the pious made donations to Wmm when they wanted his advice, the coin would never have been enough to provision the temple. Cinrae pointed to a small round hut with a freshly thatched roof right by the stable well.

“That’s the guesthouse, good sir. I’ll put your baggage in there after I’ve stabled your horse and mule. See the big house over there? That belongs to the high priest and you can pay him your respects straightaway.”

“My thanks, and I will. Is Adonyc still the head of the order here?”

“Oh he died ever so long ago. Pedraddyn was called to replace him.”

As so often happened, Nevyn was caught by surprise at just how fast the time seemed to go—for other men. He remembered Pedraddyn as an earnest acolyte not much older than Cinrae, but the man who greeted him at the door of the high priest’s residence had a streak of gray in his dark hair and the slow, solid walk of a man secure in his years and his position.

“By the feet and feathers of the holy birds! Can it truly be Nevyn?”

“It is, at that. Do you remember me? Why, it must have been twenty years ago that I was here.”

“It was, but you made quite an impression on me. It’s a marvel to see you looking so hale. You must be the best testimonial for your herbs that ever a man could have, or is it the dweomer that keeps you so fit?”

“The dweomer, truly, in its own way. It gladdens my heart to see you, too.”

Pedraddyn ushered him into a spare stone room that held one table, one bench, a narrow cot, and a vast set of shelves, stacked with codices and scrolls in leather cases. In the pink sandstone fireplace a peat fire smoldered to take off the sea chill. When the high priest clapped his hands, a servant came in the back door. He was a man in his thirties, dark-haired, and he had the worst scar that Nevyn had ever seen, thick knots and welts of shiny scar tissue that ran through his left cheek and clotted at the corner of a mouth twisted in a perpetual parody of a smile.

“Davyn, get our guest and me some spiced milk. Then you can do what you’d like until dinner.”

With a silent nod he left by the same door.

“He can’t speak clearly,” Pedraddyn said to Nevyn. “He was an Eldidd sailor once. We found him washed up on our beach and bleeding half to death from those wounds. That was about six years ago now. He begged to stay here with us, and I can’t say I blamed him for wanting out of the wars. A silent man makes a good servant for a priest.”

After Davyn brought the milk, priest and sorcerer sat down together by the fire. Nevyn had a sip of the sweet milk and wished that the priests of Wmm weren’t forbidden to drink ale and mead.

“With your skill in dweomer, I’m surprised you’d come to us for an oracle.”

“The oracle I need concerns the entire land of Deverry and Eldidd, not merely my own doings, Your Holiness. I also came to ask your aid in a certain peculiar matter. Tell me, does it ache your heart to see the wars raging and no end in sight?”

“Do you truly need to ask? It would ache the heart of any sane man.”

“Just so. We who serve the dweomer of light have joined together, and we have a plan to end the wars, but we can’t do it without the help of those who serve the gods. I’ve come to beg you to help put the one true king upon his throne.”

Pedraddyn’s eyes widened like a child’s.

“Who is he?” he whispered.

“I don’t know yet, but you have every important genealogy and noble bloodline stored away in your records. Once Great Wmm gives us an omen, surely we can interpret it with the help of the archives.”

“I see. And once you know his name?”

“Then the dweomer will put him on his throne. Let me tell you my scheme.”

Pedraddyn listened quietly at first, then flung himself out of his chair and began pacing back and forth in sheer excitement.

“It could work!” the priest burst out. “With the help of the gods, and the dweomer behind it, we could do it. The cost, though—by my most holy lord, a good many men will die in such a war.”

“Will it be any more than are dying already? At least this war will put an end to it, or so we can hope. What hope do we have now?”

“None, sure enough. On the morrow we’ll consult the god.”

Dinner that night was served in the broch in a vast round room, smoky from the torches and the peat fire, that served as refectory and kitchen both. The five priests, their three servants, and whatever guests there were all ate together at two long tables with no show of rank. Even the high priest got up to fetch himself more milk and stew if he wanted them. The quiet talk was of books and gardening, the religious exercises of the priests and the slow life of the island. Nevyn envied them. His life would soon revolve around kings and warfare, politics and death—the very things he’d tried to leave behind when he chose the dweomer road, as he remarked to Pedraddyn.

“The man who runs from his Wyrd finds it waiting for him, or so the proverb goes,” the priest said. “But yours seems to be an unusually fast runner.”

After a pleasant night in the clean, comfortable guesthouse, Nevyn woke to a world turned gray by fog. It lay so thick on island and sea that land and water seemed the same element. In the windless damp, every word spoken hung in the air like a tuft of sheep’s wool caught on a bramble. When Cinrae came to fetch him, the lad was wearing an orange cloak with the hood up against the damp.

“I hope the fog doesn’t bother you, aged sir.”