Yesterday's Kings (23 page)

“I’d only see Laurens able again,” Cullyn said. “And both of us safe.”

“And then?”

Cullyn shrugged.

“What do you think shall happen then?” Eben poured them both more honey wine. “Shall you go back to your hut and Laurens to the keep, and you both live happily ever after?”

“I don’t know.” Cullyn longed for sleep, and a return to normality: to collect his morning eggs and feed his pigs, milk the cow—how did she fare with him gone? It seemed that all his world was turned upside down and shaken, and nothing was normal anymore.

“Not likely,” Eben said. “Not with this priest on your heels, and Laurens hurt.”

“Then what?” Cullyn asked.

“Rest,” Eben said, “and we shall talk again in the morning.”

He stoppered the flask and spread two great bearskins on the floor. “Laurens needs the bed,” he said, “so we sleep here.”

Cullyn stretched out, and Eben’s pets came to surround him. He fell asleep encompassed by dogs and cats and rats and badgers, whose bodies warmed him and filled his nostrils with sleepy scents, so that he felt safe and for a while forgot his troubles.

T
HE DAWN SUN SHONE
harsh on his eyes, waking him afraid and mistrusting. He spilled complaining animals from his makeshift bed and rose.

Eben slept on, snoring loudly. Laurens lay silent, breathing shallowly but easily. Cullyn looked at his wounds and saw no fresh blood. His face was pale, but somehow seemed healthier than before.

“Leave him be.” Eben rose through an explosion of animals, scratching vigorously at a scrawny chest that seemed more bone than muscle. “He needs to rest—if we’ve the time.”

He flung the bearskin aside, standing naked as he ran fingers through his long hair and set to scratching again. Cullyn turned his eyes away: it was like watching a skeleton fidget.

“Boil us up some water, eh?”

Cullyn took the pot to the well and washed hurriedly before carrying the bucket back to the cottage. “What took you so long?”

“I washed.”

“Ha! An overrated habit. Dirt can protect you, boy. Excessive cleanliness can damage your skin and leave you vulnerable to diseases.”

“The Church says it’s next to godliness,” Cullyn ventured.

“And the Church knows best, eh? Do you always do what the Church tells you? No! Else you’d not be here. You’d have given this priest—what’s his name? Fendur?—what he wanted. You’d not have named a Durrym your friend, or helped him meet this young woman.”

“Abra,” Cullyn said.

“Whatever.” Eben struggled into his robe. “A foolish girl by my guess. But even so …” He gestured at the pot. “Are you going to set that on the fire, or stand gaping me?”

Cullyn set the kettle to boiling. Eben went to Laurens and, with a gentleness that belied his irascible manner, removed the bandages and set fresh ointments over the wounds. Laurens stirred in his sleep, and Eben dripped more of the liquid in the blue flask between his lips. Then turned to Cullyn again.

“Boil us up some tea,” he ordered. “There’s fresh bread, and plenty of bacon. Eggs in the coop, most like—can you find them.”

Cullyn poured boiling water into a kettle and went outside, wondering where his life had gone. He seemed to have stepped into a strange world of magic and wonder that he did not understand.

The day was bright—brighter, it seemed, around the perimeter of Eben’s cottage than beyond. There it was still early spring, with melting snow dripping from the trees and the woodland yet decked with icicles. But for an area around the cottage it was pleasant as Coim’na Drhu’s autumn. Birds sang, louder within the confines, and overhead the sky shone blue, decked with white, billowing clouds that ran before a brisk, warm wind. Cullyn
stared a while, wondering, then fetched the eggs from the coop.

“At last,” Eben snapped. He was at the table, a mug of tea in his hand, a cat settled on his knees, a squirrel on his left shoulder and a rat on the right, two dogs and three more cats by his feet. “What took you so long?”

Cullyn shrugged. Eben pointed at the pans hanging around the hearth. “Make yourself useful, eh? Cut us some bacon and get our breakfast ready.”

Cullyn took down the pans and drew his knife, ready to cut the slab of bacon that hung by the hearth.

“A lyn’nha’thall?” Eben asked. “Lofantyl gave you a friendship knife?”

Cullyn nodded, torn between gratitude and resentment.

“That means a lot.” Eben sipped his tea. “Not least that if the Church had found it, you’d be outright deemed a traitor. No question of it!”

“I already am.” Cullyn set the bacon to grilling.

“And all because you made a friend.” Eben lifted a fox cub from the floor and tickled its stomach, then replaced it with a cat that curled against him and purred. “Life is hard, no?”

“Sometimes.” Cullyn turned the bacon, splashed fat over the eggs.

“And there’s little justice.”

“I only wanted to be left alone.” He set bread to frying. “I sought no trouble.”

Eben laughed noisily. “Trouble finds you, boy. Look at Laurens—a good soldier, but now an outlaw. Do you think he wanted to give up his keep? A sound bed and ready meals … a warm place, with duty easily understood. And where is he now? Renegade, like you and me. Why do you think he gave all that up?”

“Because …” Cullyn shrugged and brought their
breakfast to the table. “I don’t know. I understand little of this.”

“Because he has honor,” Eben said. “He has a code that has nothing to do with Per Fendur or Amadis, but only himself. Do you understand that?”

“I’m not sure,” Cullyn said.

“You’ll learn,” Eben returned cheerfully, and set to eating his breakfast.

He spoke no more until the plate was wiped clean and all the tea drunk. Cullyn ate in equal silence, utterly confused by the turn of events. He had run with Laurens because he had no other choice. He was still not entirely sure who or what Eben was, so he waited for instructions.

Eben swept animals from his lap and stood abruptly upright. “Come, we’ve business to attend.”

Cullyn wiped crumbs of fried bread from his mouth and stared at the wizard. “What shall I do?”

“You’ve delivered me a problem,” Eben said, his mood switching abruptly from good humor to irritation. “Do you not understand how long I’ve lived in peace here? No, of course not; how could you?” He sighed gustily. “You only did what Laurens asked. And I suppose I shouldn’t blame you for that. Or Laurens. But even so …”

He moved around the cottage as he spoke, collecting bits and pieces of equipment: sprigs of herbs and small vials of indefinable liquids, a sharp-looking knife such as the chirurgeons used.

“Laurens took you across the Mys’enh, and I suppose I cannot blame him for that. But …” He shook his head, speaking mostly to himself. “With a priest on your heels? Even so … I suppose he had no choice….”

“They’d have taken us else,” Cullyn protested.

“Yes, yes; most likely they would.” Eben set his gatherings on the table. “But now?”

“I’d thought,” Cullyn said, “that we’d be safe here.”

Eben frowned. “From all you’ve told me, this priest can find the way. He followed you across the Mys’enh, no?”

“Yes,” Cullyn agreed. “Across the river, and then through the stones.”

“Not many can do that.” Eben studied the materials set on the table. “Boil another kettle, eh?”

Cullyn complied, thinking that lately all he did was obey.

“Then fetch that bowl.” Eben indicated a pot that was somehow neither metal nor wood nor clay, but hard as the one and smooth as the other, all carved with intricate designs.

Cullyn fetched the pot down, disturbing a sleeping bat in the process. “So we’re in danger?” he asked. “Have you a bow? I’m a good archer.”

Eben snorted. “You’d face a Churchman and twenty riders with a bow? Are you a fool, boy?”

Cullyn blushed. “I’ll not leave Laurens,” he said.

Eben worked busily. “Neither would I, for our fates are all entwined, I think. So … Is that pot ready?”

The water was seething. Cullyn took a cloth and brought it to the table, where Eben dumped in a selection of herbs and weeds. Then took up the knife and slashed his wrist so that blood dripped, bright, into the stew.

“Now give me yours,” he commanded.

Cullyn gasped and shook his head.

“Dammit, give me your arm! I need your blood.”

“What for?”

“To make fends,” Eben snapped. “Else likely we all die.”

“I don’t understand,” Cullyn said, reluctant to lend his blood to the pot.

“You wouldn’t.” Eben flourished the blade. “But I’ll have it anyway. I’m not ready to die yet. I’ve lived too long to give it up for such stupidity. Now do as I say!”

Cullyn backed away, shaking his head vigorously as Eben came around the table with the knife upraised. He was prepared to fight the strange old man, but suddenly he found his path blocked by animals: dogs barked at him and cats mewed, exposing their claws; badgers and foxes nipped his heels; rats clambered up his breeches, and birds came fluttering around his head until he tripped and fell down and Eben was on him, brandishing the shining blade.

He shouted, more in surprise than pain, as Eben slashed his wrist and he saw hot, red blood spurt.

Then he was yanked upright, his shirtfront grasped by the silver-haired man, who was far stronger than he’d guessed, and his arm extended over the pot so that his blood dripped in to join the wizard’s.

“Excellent.” Eben let him go and he collapsed onto the floor. The wizard gestured at the animals clustering around Cullyn. “Stay there.”

He had little choice: there was a weight of beasts holding him to the floor, and many wore sharp teeth that snapped and flashed when he tried to rise. Dogs barked in his face and badgers opened wicked jaws; cats set claws on him as rats gnawed on his hair and foxes set fangs about his wrists. He could not move: only watch as Eben carried the pot to the bed and cut Laurens’s wrist, dripping more blood into the kettle.

“What are you doing?” Cullyn wailed past the weight on his body.

“Protecting us all,” Eben snapped. “Now be quiet! You begin to annoy me.” He flung a dirty sleeve loose from his wrist and cut his own flesh again.

Cullyn lay still as the wizard studied his own thick
droplets of blood dripping into the pot, then stirred the potion and called the animals to him.

Cullyn rose slowly, wary of attack, but none came and Eben only smiled as he dipped his fingers into the horrid brew and began to decorate the animals. He painted five badgers and six foxes; nine birds; seven dogs; eleven cats; and as many bats as he could catch before they fluttered away. Then he opened the door and ushered them all out into the burgeoning morning.

“That should do it. For a while, at least.”

“What?” Cullyn clutched at his bleeding arm.

“Confuse the priest with fends,” Eben said, “Give me your arm, eh?”

Cullyn extended his arm and watched Eben set salves on the wound and bandage it, then tend to Laurens before he wrapped himself.

“Fends?”

Eben chuckled. “You’ve little knowledge of magic, boy.”

“None.”

“And yet you wear a lyn’nha’thall. The gods know but Lofantyl must have seen something in you. Though I cannot imagine what.” He sat down at the table, gesturing that Cullyn join him.

“A fend is a trickster: it deceives pursuit because it’s disguised. Do you understand?”

Cullyn shook his head, and Eben said wearily, “Dear gods, protect me from such innocence. This priest seeks you, no? He’d have you for his own purposes—and he’s found a way to follow you across the Mys’enh and likely even here. So I must confuse him, else we shall all be taken. I needed blood to make fends, which shall carry our magical scents and—all well—find groves and burrows and dens and confuse the pursuit. Does this priest follow the blood-trails my pets take, he’ll be utterly con
fused, and have no idea where we are. For a while, at least.”

“And if not?” Cullyn asked.

“Then he’ll find us,” Eben said. “And you and Laurens shall die—after the torture, of course.”

“And you?”

Eben shrugged. “I’d likely escape. I’ve succeeded thus far, no? But … now you come to disturb my solitude.”

“So why bring us in?” Cullyn asked.

“I don’t know,” Eben said, “and I don’t care to explain. Ask Laurens when he wakes.”

“If,” Cullyn said.

“I think he shall,” Eben returned. “I gave him my best tending. Because … I care about him. But I need time. He needs time.”

Cullyn stared at the wizard, and Eben shrugged and said, “Ask him.”