Weatherwitch: Book Three of The Crowthistle Chronicles (19 page)

During the following days Asrathiel found herself caught up in her studies and in preparations for her birthday celebration and the conferral of weathermagehood. She was so often occupied with urgent business that the matter of the urisk and the brownie slipped her mind. From time to time Albiona would bring it up, and the damsel intended to act on the matter, but
the urisk was being elusive; she seldom spied him, and when she did, he failed to remain in view for long, and would not speak to her.

She could not help being troubled about Albiona’s blaming her for the brownie’s plight. It was bad enough that Asrathiel’s aunt failed to see eye to eye with her about the inheritance of Fallowblade, or her stance on equal rights for all animals, without another grievous fault being added to the catalogue. Furthermore she was indeed sorry for the poor bullied brownie, for she empathized with all things that lived; and she tried to think of some way to aid the wight.

Pollen and petals from the last of the roses that bloomed around the cupola on the house of Maelstronnar were dislodged by the wind and blown away. The petals landed on Dristan’s neatly scythed, weed-free lawns. Three tiny jots of gold whirled through the eastern gate of High Darioneth and across the tops of the alpine forests, until they drifted over the junction of the byway and the highway: Blacksmith’s Corner. There, one minuscule mote alighted upon the helm of a passing knight, while the others floated on.

The warrior was Conall Gearnach, commander-in-chief of Slievmordhu’s Knights of the Brand. He led a company of chivalry from the Red Lodge, King Uabhar’s fiercest and most loyal fighting men. They were traveling northwards, on their way to practice martial maneuvers amidst the harsh and frigid steeps on the marches of Narngalis. Most rode on horseback, their mounts champing on the steel bits that ruled them by way of their sensitive mouths. The emblem of the burning brand illustrated the scarlet tabards of the knights, and their uniforms were resplendent with crimson, vermilion, and madder. Yellow bronze damascened their helms of steel. Beneath their tabards they wore the breast and back plates of cuirasses. From their shoulders flowed carmine cloaks that covered both the rider and the haunches of the horse. War-chariots and supply-wagons were hauled by sweating draught-horses whose hides bore cross-hatchings of whiplash scars.

After they had passed Blacksmith’s Corner, where the side road branched off to High Darioneth, they rounded a bend and encountered a group
of
horsemen coming from the other direction. No sudden panic overcame them; only a sharpening of wariness. The Knights of the Brand, heavily armed and honed in the skills of fighting, were fearless.

In any case, those who approached appeared harmless; a band of men
who, by their salt-white hair and beards, all looked old enough to be grand-sires. They were clad in civilian garb, and would doubtless move aside and give up the road to the military cavalcade.

As they came near, Gearnach hailed the civilians. “Ho, men of Narngalis!” He raised his hand in a signal to his troops. Both parties reined in their horses.

“I am Conall Gearnach of the Red Lodge,” said the knight. “What news of Narngalis, good citizens?”

“Conall Gearnach! Hail! Your fame precedes you, sir,” one of the travelers answered courteously. “The commander-in-chief of the Knights of the Brand is widely renowned. My name is Tsafrir. I was once Captain of the Guard to the Duke of Bucks Horn Oak, and I remain in service to his household. We are the duke’s liegemen.” The look in his eye clearly showed him to be honored that Two-Swords Gearnach would speak to a band of humble retainers.

Recognizing a fellow soldier in this grizzled cavalier, Gearnach gave a curt nod of acknowledgment. “Well met, Tsafrir.”

“You ask for tidings, sir, but I must tell you there are few. Narngalis is a peaceful land.” As he said this, bold Tsafrir deliberately let his gaze wander over the shining steel of chariot and helm.

“And shall remain so,” said Gearnach, noting the direction of the man’s gaze. “King Warwick grants us leave to practice the arts of battle amongst the steeps of Ironstone Pass, the better to accustom ourselves to harsh conditions. What news of Marauders along the road ahead?”

“None, sir. We were not harassed.”

“That is well. But look to your weapons and your watch if you intend to cross into Slievmordhu. Marauder raids have become frequent throughout our realm. King Uabhar sends out his troops in ever-increasing numbers, to keep the savages in check. Slievmordhu’s eastern borders are vigilantly patrolled. Despite these measures—” the knight’s voice roughened “—despite these measures they continue to wreak havoc. Three days ago we happened upon a small settlement under attack.” Beneath his helm, the eyes in the soldier’s weather-beaten face hardened like splinters of flint, and abruptly he fell silent. Clearly, what he had witnessed caused him distress.

“I thank you for the warning, sir,” Tsafrir said respectfully. “Our ultimate destination is Ashqalêth, but we shall bear in mind your timely rede.”

Gearnach nodded again. “Derry Meagher is the place I speak of. Good day to you, Tsafrir of Bucks Horn Oak.”

“And to you sir. Fare well.”

Tsafrir and his companions moved to the side of the road as the squadron of mounted knights cantered by, their harness jingling, their chariots and wagons clattering. When the last of the warriors had passed, the liegemen resumed their journey southwards.

“I rejoice that I do not have to cater for such a large quantity of hungry soldiers,” observed a deep-chested fellow with grey whiskers. He and Tsafrir looked to be about the same age—close to sixty Winters. “It is enough that I cook for the household of the duke.”

“For my part, Yaadosh,” said a third man, “I rejoice merely that your culinary skills have improved vastly since your youth.”

Yaadosh tapped the side of his leathery nose. “Ah, but when a man is employed in the work he relishes,” he said, “one cannot help but raise one’s skills to a more excellent quality. Much as your juggling has mended, Michaiah my lad, you having spent years as conjurer and entertainer.”

Tsafrir, who had remained silent since their brief exchange with the knights, now spoke. “Such a wonder!” he exclaimed. “We have met Two-Swords Gearnach. Everyone speaks well of him, from Narngalis to Grïmnørsland. He is reputed to be an honorable man, fiercely loyal his sovereign. King Uabhar instills into his troops, indeed into his own family, the precept of ‘Loyalty Above All,’ and Gearnach is a paragon of that precept.”

“I deem he is also a man of compassion,” Yaadosh observed.

“Compassion, yes,” rejoined Tsafrir, “for recall the tale from some years ago, about how he cut down the assassin who tried to hang herself from the Iron Tree in Cathair Rua, and thereafter the woman was rehabilitated, and she made the great Garden for the good of all, and became the Crone of the Herbs. If not for Two-Swords she would have died and the Garden would never have grown in that wasteland.”

Ahead of the travelers, masses of grey clouds billowed slantwise through the sky, as if tightly massed chimneys from acres of manufactories were pouring out smoke. The highway meandered through a lush water-meadow before climbing a wooded slope. Blackbirds were warbling in oak, beech and alder. Red admiral butterflies dodged through the leaves.

“I would that we might hasten our journey through Slievmordhu,” said Michaiah, whose nag plodded laboriously. “Everybody we meet informs us of the increase in attacks from the mountain clansmen. I am too old to be beating off bandits. I’ve already done my fair share of hewing ugly heads. These visits to R’shael seem more arduous every year. I am always pleased to
see our old friends, but I’d just as soon be home amusing the grandchildren with sleight-of-hand.”

“Ach!” Nasim snorted. “You are talking like a greybeard!”

Michaiah’s eyes crossed as he looked down at his own chin. “A greybeard is what I am,” he said. Then he added, wonderingly, “Where did the years go?”

A few days later they crossed the hills into Slievmordhu. Bordered by luxuriant oak woods, the road climbed a low ridge. As the riders breasted the rise, catching their first glimpse of a small village about half a mile away in the valley below, a band of armed men sprang out from the trees to bar their way. The guards wore Sir Reamonn Meagher’s coat of arms, for he was lord in those parts and they were in his service. They challenged the newcomers and would not let them pass until they were satisfied as to their identity and the peaceful nature of their business.

“We wish to break our journey,” explained Tsafrir, “mayhap to take a drop of ale at your inn.”

“The inn at Derry Meagher was lately burned to the ground,” the patrol captain grimly informed the visitors. “But you can get ale at the brewer’s house.”

The travelers turned off the highway onto the meandering byroad and made for the settlement. Beyond the hills on the horizon, massed rainclouds were still blowing across the skies, and a scattering of dark birds winged eastwards. Cloud-reflections drifted beneath the glassy surface of a duck-pond.

As the vista opened out, the riders could see in the distance an ox-drawn wagon jolting along a winding lane, overtaking a goose-girl who was supervising her flock. A woman carrying a wooden yoke across her shoulders, a pail suspended at each end, was delivering milk up to the manor house, while two young men hauled sacks of oats from the granary to the mill.

Berries were ripening on the hawthorn hedges, and starlings were squabbling beneath the eaves of stable and byre. The village’s three large fields flanked the road. It was close on harvest-time; wheat and rye hazed the north field with a pale yellow mist; oats, barley, peas and beans thrived in the home field strips, while three or four cattle grazed under the chestnut trees bordering the fallow southern field. Children walked up and down the furrows scaring off the birds. When they spied the riders they ran away, shouting in fright, destroying the impression of a peaceful idyll.

Derry Meagher with its mill, its small brewery and its inn, was a settlement
inhabited by about one hundred and eighty people. The mill and a row of thatched wooden cottages lined the stream at the bottom of the valley. Larger cottages clustered along both sides of the main street, flanking the walled demesnes of the slate-tiled manor house, the only stone building. Each dwelling, surrounded by gnarled apple and plum trees, occupied its own yard. Toddlers played amongst the chickens and dogs; they, too, fled when they caught sight of strangers riding into town. In the crofts behind the yards women leaned on their hoes, warily watching the riders from amongst rows of turnips and parsnips, beans and peas, onions, cabbages, and clumps of sage and thyme.

The travelers passed a skinny fellow with the dazed demeanor of the slow-witted, who was sitting cross-legged by the roadside playing a merry tune on a bone pipe. After removing the instrument from his lips he sang,

“Poor folk in hovels,

Charged with children and overcharged by landlords,

What they save by spinning they spend on rent.

On milk, or on meal to make porridge.”

“Can you not get it to
rhyme?”
Michaiah the songmaker muttered intolerantly as they went by.

“Poor Rori and Cluny and Tipper, lyin’ cold in their graves,” the fellow sang heedlessly, before putting the pipe to his mouth and resuming his incongruously happy tune.

As they passed along the main street the liegemen found themselves audience to the sound of low sobbing, which emanated from one of the houses. Men with fresh cuts and scratches on their faces and hands were mending a splintered door and affixing iron bars to windows. A linen bandage wrapped the head of one worker. Burdened by a bundle of kindling-twigs, a hunch-backed woman trudged past, one arm in a sling. Across the top of the main street, beside the grassy common dotted with sheep, a third group of cottages had been built. At the end of this row stood the inn, the brewery and the brewer’s house. Where the inn had once been, however, there was now nought but a blackened ruin. Most of the burned timber had been cleared to one side, and men were already beginning to reconstruct the building on its original chalk footings. Using a block and tackle, they were hoisting the first of several enormous pairs of wooden crucks, whose bases were to rest on large padstones built into the foundations.