Earth Magic (12 page)

Chapter 14

I
N LATE AFTERNOON, THE CLOUDS THAT HAD BEEN
dooming the day broke at last into great floes and sailed apart. That was while Oliver was following the hill path that led down into the glen where Duke Girard lay encamped. On his heels were the two boy outlaws who had come upon him in his great confusion after he awoke alone at Leaning Rock. These boys still wore clothes sewn by their mothers, though oversewn with patches of experience. The day continued cool in cloud and tree shadow, but in other moments bright. Grasses shivered then in sunlight and Oliver must narrow his eyes.

Oliver appeared the knobby sailor, Old Noll, he of the pendulous earlobes and the hairy nostrils, he of the red hair and the eye cocked on another world. At this moment, Oliver did not just wear Sailor Noll as a mask. He did his best to be Sailor Noll, to be no more than Sailor Noll, a man of no consequence. He had not done any of those simple things Oliver knew that would win him free of these outlaws minor. He did not wish to win free. He had welcomed their arrival.

Oliver sought the comfort of a fire, a fair portion, a place for his head, and time to regain his mind’s balance. In return he might offer the news of the day as it had come to a land-bound sailor walking the long road home from Eduna to Jedburke. Sailor Noll had said what was necessary to persuade these two damp lads to leave off their patrol and bring him and his news back to the warm and dry of camp. They had welcomed the persuasion.

This winter camp, tucked away in the range of hills that rose like a hedgerow between Morca and Arngrim, was the center of Duke Girard’s power. Girard was he who would have been ruler of Bary if the Gets had never come. He had been raised in exile in Palsance and was now returned to live at the edges of Gettish vision in his home hills of Bary, where he commanded fifty men among whom were more boys than just these two. They named themselves soldiers of the duke.

They had no more than reached the edge of camp, Sailor Noll and the two young soldiers, passed through by the watch, when they were set upon by a lank man whose many more patches were token of his greater authority. Camp was a well-used clearing, and there were more than fifty, men and women both, in camp today. They wore rude and simple clothes, and some even wore the skins of animals. So much Oliver could see at this distance.

The lank man was angry. He swore at the boys and said, “I will see you whipped. Will none of you follow orders? I put you wood lice on the Pellardy Road until dark! Is this darkness?”

“Be you calm, Rab,” the smaller boy said pertly. “We bring news for the duke.”

Rab was not calm, nor ready to be told to be. Oliver paid the noise no mind, waiting for it to cease. He looked away. A dozen women, as many old as young, played camp wife around the smoky fires. Men sat, worked, or played there in the glen in the glowing blue and orange of the cool late after-rain.

He was not much of an Oliver, that powerful man of magic, this fugitive Oliver. He was no man of whom Gets must be wary. He was a man of no consequence. He was content to be mere Sailor Noll and go where mere Sailor Noll would go. He ached to sit.

The world of his mind was as strange now as Haldane’s. From the time that he was a boy, Oliver had been acquainted with his failings. He was self-bound to narrow practice. He was indolent. He was timorous. He excused himself from much.

Nonetheless, he would not be stayed from walking at large in the world. He had countered his failings with his strengths. Agility was his chief strength, and he had forced his agility to carry him where diligence and courage and breadth alone would have failed him. Agility had made Oliver into Morca’s wizard and adviser, the one man of magic amongst the Gets. Naught else but agility could have done so much.

And once he had found his balance there among the Gets, that was a safe and easy time, the years with Morca, the first that Oliver had known since he was young. He had let himself forget that he had bade goodbye to safety and ease when he left home. He had let himself forget that narrow practice was his failing and practiced narrowly. He had lost himself in study, lost himself in thought and question, paused for a moment in dream while he wondered where his youth had flown and wither he was bound. To what end had he been born? And while he was occupied so in reverie, he had lost his balance.

Oliver had tricked Oliver and received a blow from Oliver that had set Oliver down. Where was order? His world was broken. His mind ran on its own heels in subtle circles.

He knew not what to trust, or what to believe, or what to do. Small things were disturbing—like Haldane’s dream and the trail of the wurox. He knew not what they meant. He did not know what was important and what was not—and in this event, how could he make up his mind to anything?

Oh, if instead of practicing narrowly in his cell, Oliver had truly studied to know the meaning of small signs, like the presence of kings and witches, then Morca might be alive. The world might be whole. And Oliver might still be safe and happy practicing narrowly in his cell. What of that?

But when this Rab, this lank sergeant of outlaws, loomed over Oliver and said, “What is your news, old man? I will be the judge of it,” Oliver was not so lost that he could not wither him with one squint of his odd eye. If this Rab could be defied by two wee boy outlaws, he was not a man meant to be Sailor Noll’s master.

“None of yours to know,” said Oliver. “My news is for the duke.”

And as they made their progress through the camp, Oliver gained confidence in this small game he was playing in the guise of Sailor Noll. This was a camp hungry for news if not for meat. Men called to ask what was afoot as they walked, and when the two boy outlaws said it was news, they hurried to swell the progress. Sailor Noll with his news was a safe and simple size to be.

“Is it Mainard returned?” some asked.

And others, the rougher men in skins, said: “Is there to be drink at last?”

The Duke Girard, rightful heir to Bary in the eyes of some, stood separate from other men, his back to a great standing stone, an ancient raised tongue of rock placed alone there where they camped. Nearby him were several leaders of outlaws, commoner men, come here to confer, and to eat and drink with Girard. Beyond Girard’s shoulders, close by the rock, stood a strange Man of the Woods, one of those who were the first people of Nestor, one of different breed than all the others here. His hair was fine and black, and his robes were brown. And so they all gathered: the party with news and those they had attracted, the outlaw leaders standing together, the strange Man of the Woods standing apart, and Girard alone in their midst.

Girard was a pretty and well-made youth with the air of a dream-walker lost in some dream other. Among these men, Girard was singular in fashion and dress. He wore his hair long after the style of the Western courts and his clothes were Western clothes of Palsance that had not survived the winter whole. His singularity was one of the proofs by which Girard commanded his fifty loyal men.

Thus it was that as the sun set, Oliver stood before young Girard and divers other outlaws. The price of a night’s hospitality was on his tongue and his true self was invisible, and he was content to have it so.

If Oliver had been fully Oliver, he might have worried over the meaning of the raised rock. This place was an old place, and old places are not the same as new places. Oliver might have worried over the rock and its seeming guardian man in his robes of brown.

Sailor Noll only managed to take in Duke Girard, his back to a stone that stood taller than he. But he was enough Oliver to know before a word was spoken that Sailor Noll could take in Duke Girard indeed. He could see it in Duke Girard’s bearing.

“Lord, here is one who claims news for you,” said lank Rab. “I think he is a vagrom who would lie to have the advantage of your table.”

One of the two young soldiers of the duke suddenly declined responsibility for Sailor Noll. He leaned toward those around him to seem one of them. But the other young outlaw saw in Duke Girard something of what Oliver saw. He smiled and stood tall behind queer-looking Sailor Noll.

“We share with all who visit us, Rab. My table is open to all of Bary. I am duke.”

“Yes, lord,” said Rab.

“Nay, I do mean it, Rab.”

“Yes, lord.”

“Is it news of the train to Palsance?” asked Girard. He smiled. “We all shall be less cross when the ambock has arrived. And my wardrobe.”

“Lord, he has not said what his news is, if news he has,” said Rab.

“I should not have guessed,” said Girard. “Who are you, strange old man, and with what news have you been sent to me?”

Oliver said, “My name is Noll and I am an old sailor walking the road from Eduna to Jedburke. My lord.”

“If you must be a sailor, I will accept that,” said Girard. “Or is that part of the message?”

It suddenly became evident to Oliver that this dreamy-eyed young boy saw him as a portent. Girard saw through Sailor Noll, not to Oliver behind, but to words of import clothed in strange human form. And with a sudden surge of heart, Oliver realized that Girard saw truly. Sailor Noll, with his news, was a portent in this camp.

Sailor Noll became a portent. He swung his sack down to the ground. On the instant, he changed his bearing. Without being any less Sailor Noll, he took on stature. He expanded his will. And all present but the Man of the Woods and Girard himself fell back a pace from the sight of ugly shy-eyed Sailor Noll. The Man of the Woods cocked his head on his shoulder and watched Noll steadfastly. It seemed the life of these outlaws was not his life, and great news for them was not great news for him, a man of other kind. As for Girard, he bravely held his ground before momentous words.

Oliver signed the sign that commands silence and grave attention from all men. His arm outstretched, his hand raised, thumb a-cock, forefinger pointing high.

He said: “Once there was a king, a barbarian tyrant. Because his skin was black as a frog, they called him the Black King.”

And he told the story of Morca and Morca’s banquet and Morca’s head as though it had happened in another land many years ago. He made a place for Duke Girard in the story.

And when he finished, the outlaws asked each other, “What does this mean?” They did not know of what Oliver spoke because the names had not been Nestor and the Gets and Lothor of Chastain and Black Morca. They looked into each other’s faces to see the meaning of what they heard. Some thought it was an aimless story. Some thought it was a riddle. Some thought it was news of strange foreign politics.

As the outlaws looked to each other, Girard put his face in both hands against the force of the words of power this gnarly messenger had borne to him. He believed that he understood the story and who it was who came after the black usurper king. He put his face in his hands to think, but he did not cover his eyes. The words he had heard were weightier than any he had invited to hear.

He dropped his hands and asked his portent: “Is it Black Morca who is dead?”

The wildest of the hill outlaws, not a leader of anyone, but one who stood by himself, said: “What is this news? Does he say that my old enemy, the Hammer of Gradis, is dead?”

“If this be true, then our day’s planning is spent for nothing,” said one of the leader men.

“Black Morca is dead,” said Oliver.

Girard, in strange mind, spread his hands. His hands trembled and his face rolled. His soldiers knew that this was the sign he made before he spoke the words by which they were guided. Strangers to the camp, who knew Duke Girard best by repute, watched in wonder.

He said in a clear and even voice: “If the barbarian king is Morca, then I am the boy Jehan. I am the new Jehannes!” And his face lit with an inner light. “I wish Mainard were here so that I might tell him.”

He said: “Listen to me, my men. Black Morca is dead and his head sits on a pole like a cabbage! The Gets have fallen on each other with the fury of their own battle pigs. Now is the moment for us to strike them as we may. I am the heir of Jehannes. I will rule Bary. I will rule the world. Have faith and follow me.”

And the men stirred at that. And then they continued to stir. Someone was arrived, and a cry went up! “Mainard! It is Mainard!” The outlaws fell away and in the still half-light another young man, of cut similar to Girard but wearing a new coat, came running in, stopped, panted once lightly for effect, and threw his arms wide to show himself off for inspection. Then he and Girard made the noises made when good friends meet again, and fell to hugging each other.

Girard said, “I am the new Jehannes. I’m going to lead us to strike against the Gets wherever we may find them.”

Mainard said, “I was so hoping I would find you crowding the fires before dinner so that you might truly admire the clothes that I wear. Not in this murk.”

“No, my good friend Mainard. Hear me: Black Morca is dead. He has been struck down by his fellows and the Gets now rip each other recklessly. We have been given a moment and we must act on the moment we have been given.”

Mainard fell back. He said: “This explains much. The country is aswarm with Gets. We had to dig a cache and leave the greater part behind us. I could not bring you your wardrobe. You will have to look at me and dream. Why do we stand here? We could be eating.”

“Only to gather strength,” said Girard.

“That I will do,” said Mainard.

“Did you bring nothing with you from Palsance?” the outlaw men asked.

“Nothing but the ambock,” said Mainard.

And the men all cried hurray and turned for supper. And there the kegs of dark brew were. Oliver followed behind, his moment as a portent complete, his meal, his beer, and his place as close by the fire as he liked all earned. He remembered ambock from other days and he could taste it now.

Jana, the moon, showed half her face in the sky overhead, but her eyes were unveiled. She watched all in silence.