Sword and the Spell 01: The Grey Robe (3 page)

Maladran frowned at the title but let it pass, his
charge was at the end of his endurance and the rules of subservience were
probably the only anchor which remained to keep his sanity. Carefully, as if
those chains might break or disappear beneath his hands, Maladran guided the
boy to the log by the fire and pushed him down onto the makeshift bench whilst
he ladled out a small bowl of oats and poured golden honey on top. The boy took
the proffered bowl hesitantly and then, before his host could offer him a spoon,
scooped the meal into his mouth with frantic fingers like a starving animal.
Maladran scowled down at him, his patience coming to an end.

“Steady, steady. I know you are hungry but if you eat
at that speed nothing will stay down long enough to do you any good.” He
reached out to take the bowl and the boy cringed back with a whimper. “I have
told you boy that I will not abuse you, nor will I beat you, but in return you
must show a little trust.”

The boy said nothing but his shoulders straightened
slightly. Maladran relaxed a little and smiled to himself as he returned to the
pot hanging over the fire. Satisfied at the progress he had made he poured the
boy another bowl of hot oats. This time he took the spoon and ate the sweet cereal
at half the speed. Maladran left him with a small flask of watered wine and a
piece of travel bread whilst he went to saddle his horse. The boy nibbled the
bread carefully wondering how long it would be before he was fed again.
Furtively he looked around the clearing hoping to find some berries which he
could pick now and save for later but all he could see were some greying
mushrooms and some old nut shells. He looked back to the fire when the man
returned with a rolled bundle of clothing.

“I burnt the sacking they gave you to wear; it stank
of the middin and was full of vermin. Until we can find you something more
fitting you can wear these.” He handed the boy a neat bundle bound around by a
leather belt, gathered up the dirty dishes and with a tuneless whistle walked
away from the clearing towards the ford to wash them.

For several minutes the boy sat with the bundle on his
knee, listening to the man whistling and walking away from him, unable to move.
He was confused. He had expected pain or at least to be treated with contempt
as he had always been treated for as long as he could remember. Instead the man
had shared his food and had now given him his own clothing to wear.

Cautiously he ran his hand over the fine weave and
held the bundle to his nose, it smelt of soapwort and herbs and vaguely of
saddle leather and horse. It was a provocative smell and disturbed a memory in
the boy which he couldn’t totally recall. The half memory added to his
confusion. He was kingsward, to be treated as his masters thought fit and
kindness was no part of that treatment. Yet vague feelings, more like a tickle
in his mind, told him there had been a time before he became the king’s
property when kindness had been a part of his life but he wasn’t sure, he
couldn’t quite remember.

The sound of the man’s returning footfalls made him
jump and he scrambled out of the cloak to do his new master’s bidding. He
pulled the soft grey shirt over his head but it was far too large for him,
reaching to his knees and trailing the long arms far beyond the end of his
finger tips. Quickly he rolled back the sleeves as best as he could and concentrated
on the fastenings which seemed small and intricate and completely unmanageable
with the man’s eyes boring into his back. He fumbled the fastenings completely and
his sleeves unrolled and swamped his hands. When Maladran’s laughter surprised
him he looked up in annoyance and caught the man’s eye before remembering his
place and returning to his habitual subservient pose. Maladran was not
displeased with the response; it seemed the boy still had some spirit left
after all.

“You look like the ancient father of time in that
shroud,” laughed Maladran, surprised at his own humour which rarely surfaced.
He picked through the bundle of clothing and discarded the breeches and leather
jerkin which would have been too large to serve any useful purpose but
extracted the soft leather belt. Kneeling by the boy he drew his knife and
instantly felt the boys alarm penetrate the barrier which shielded him from the
feelings and emotions of others.

“Trust,” he commanded, taking hold of a trailing
sleeve and cutting it to length and then dealing with the other sleeve in the
same manner. That complete, he concentrated on the intricate fastenings whilst
he tried to come to terms with what had just happened. Once again his barrier
had dropped and his emotions had seemed to have escaped from his iron control
only this time there was no response from the metal collar he wore. It was
something he would have to consider further. Needing to move away from the boy Maladran
stood abruptly and handed him the two pieces of sleeve and the belt.

“I assume you know how to make a covering for your
loins?” The boy nodded. “Good. The belt will turn the shirt into a reasonable
tunic which will have to do for the rest of the journey. When you are ready we’ll
leave and be quick about it, I need to make up the time you have lost me and I
am ready to go.”

“Yes, master,” replied the boy in practised tones,
bowing his head. The response annoyed Maladran but he couldn’t think why.

He still felt annoyed and assailed by mixed feelings
several hours later as the bay gelding confidently made its way along the hard
packed road that separated the forest from the fields of tall grass. The sky
was overcast but the air was warm and insects buzzed around the yellow flowers
growing amongst the grass. His horse was strong and fresh from its day’s rest
and the weight of its extra passenger had no effect on the sureness of its
step. If the boy had no effect on the horse the opposite was true for Maladran
who became more and more irritable.

Behind him he could feel the boy’s presence like a
shadow imitating his movements although only the boy’s hand touched Maladran’s
cloak. The boy’s closeness was warm and disturbing and although the waves of
fear had ceased battering him, other emotions emanated from him pricking at his
senses. There was always the feeling of something which went much deeper,
something which sought for relief but which he couldn’t touch.

Maladran’s years of training, enhanced by the collar
he wore, had equipped him with infinite control over his own emotions,
indulging only those which were useful on a particular occasion but for most of
the time he felt nothing. With such mastery it was simple to block the emotions
of others, an essential attribute when using his arcane power. Teaching High
Lord Coledran a lesson he would not forget for a long time had drained him and
he needed to rest and recoup his powers before returning to Sarrat’s side. It
would not be wise to show any weakness in front of his master but now his
control had slipped so that both his own and the boy’s feelings intruded into
his consciousness when all he sought was emptiness. Such feelings would have to
be expunged if they were not to interfere with carrying out the king’s wishes.

“What’s your name, boy?” he asked suddenly. Naming
your subject was the primary step to controlling them; it was the first lesson
any apprentice magician learnt.

“I don’t know, master,” replied the boy, his voice
muffled from behind the dark cloak.

Maladran was taken aback, how could he control that
which he could not name?
 
“What do you
mean you don’t know? Everyone has a name. What name did your parents give to
you?”

The boy’s voice became very small and a deep sense of
loss and loneliness invaded Maladran’s consciousness.

“I don’t know master, I can’t remember my parents.”

“Then what did they call you as kingsward? You must
have a name to be identified on your bonding papers.” A sudden spear of
remembered pain burnt across the magician’s mind reminding him of the number he
had seen seared by hot iron into the boys forearm. “The Stablemaster must have
called you something?”

“Yes, master, they named me Middin.”

Maladran could almost feel the boy slump in shame, the
little spark of spirit which had started to grow cringing further back inside
the boy at the humiliating label. Middin was no more a name than his kingsward
number and it was important that he knew the boy’s name. Perhaps a different
path of enquiry would loosen the boy’s obstinate tongue.

“How old are you, boy?”

“I don’t know, master. The Stablemaster told me I had
seen eight summers and was old enough to be whipped but I can only remember my
last days as kingsward and then my time as the middin boy”

Maladran’s annoyance grew. “I don’t suppose you
remember the crimes your father was executed for either?” he asked cruelly but
the boy didn’t reply. The situation angered him beyond reason; nobody ever
defied Maladran and especially not a cringing slip of a boy. “So you don’t
recall your name, your age or your parentage. Is there anything you do remember
about yourself or have you conveniently forgotten everything?”

“No, master,” replied the boy, too scared now by the
man’s anger to add anything else.

“Then perhaps some exercise will jog your memory and
loosen your tongue.”

He turned in the saddle and grabbed the boy’s arm,
swinging him from the back of the horse and depositing him roughly on the
ground without the horse once breaking pace. The boy stumbled and cut his knee
on the sharp stones of the flint and gravel road. He picked himself up,
confused as to what he was meant to do. Around him was forest and grassland and
in the distance the grey haze of a low line of hills stretched as far as he
could see.

The horse had not stopped moving so he fell in behind
it, stumbling when the roadway became more uneven and running every so often to
catch up with the tall gelding. Satisfied that he wouldn’t be disturbed the
Magician ignored the boy, the horse and everything else around him and pulled
the hood of his dark robe across his head blocking out all sight and sound. He
pulled the cloak tightly around his shoulders and withdrew into himself cutting
himself off from all feelings.

The boy followed behind close to tears, blood ran down
his shin from the cut on his knee and small stones scraped at the soles of his
bare feet. For a short time his hopes had risen and he had dared to dream that
his new master would care for him and give him a chance to show he was not lazy
or as bad as he had been told by others for as long as he could remember. He
wanted to please the man who had fed him and clothed him and let him ride his
fine horse but instead he had angered him by not being able to remember all
those simple things that any other boy could.

Of course he could remember some things like the
hunger and the cold. He could remember being continually afraid in the
kingsward compound where the older boys would beat you if they thought you had
hidden a stale crust and warders would beat you for the sheer pleasure of doing
it. His hopes had risen when he had been sent to the High Lord’s estate but
that had ended in hours of toil under Tarris’s cruel hands. He could have told
his new master what it was like to be without hope but no master wanted to hear
about those things. The man thought he had lied and had pushed him away, not
caring if he followed or not but he wouldn’t give up. He had made himself a
promise that he wouldn’t give in so he would show him, he would still be there
when the man stopped.

The noon day sun broke through the overcast sky and then
fell away towards the horizon, falling behind the distant hills turning them
from grey to ochre and gold and then just a dark smudge as the light faded
behind them. Eventually the horse came to a stop on a grassy sward at the edge
of the road and dropped its head to nibble at the tender grass but the man
didn’t dismount or move. The boy stumbled to the horse’s side and waited with
his head bowed for the man to tell him what to do. His bare feet were bruised
and cut from the road and he shivered where an afternoon rain shower had soaked
him through. Despite that he felt proud that he had stuck to his resolve and kept
up with the horse so he could stand at his master’s side. He waited for a word,
good or bad or even the sharpness of the master’s hand would have done but the
man neither spoke nor moved.

After a while the boy decided that the man must be
waiting for him to say something so he found enough courage to look up. The man
wasn’t looking at him or anything else as far as he could see as his features
were hidden inside his hood. His hands were limp on the horse’s reins so that
only the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders showed that he was alive and
breathing. Swallowing his trepidation the boy stepped closer to study the man’s
face, hoping that his attention would attract his master’s notice and he would
be told what to do. Even with his eyes closed the magician had something about
him which commanded respect, although it was a respect born of fear rather than
admiration.

His features were sharp and chiselled but without
being gaunt. Straight, raven-black hair framed his face which was tanned and
not as pale as he had first thought. His lips were red as if he had been eating
berries and the boy was startled when he realised that the man’s lips were
moving as if he spoke to himself. Yet for all that, he made no sound. He wasn’t
sure if the man was asleep or in some sort of trance; he looked so different
from when he had first dared to look into his dark eyes and now the red stones
in the torc around his throat glowed like two baleful eyes.