Earth Magic (13 page)

Chapter 15

S
AILOR NOLL SAT WITHOUT COMPANY
at the farthest glimmer of the fire circle. His bag was by his leg where he could be sure of it. He had a well-filled plate on his lap, with a thick slice of good meat. A jack of dark beer sat on the ground before him. He was alone because there was no man nor woman in this company that did not feel that he was best left by himself. That was a safe space in which Sailor Noll could eat his meat as though it were the world-in-all and drink his good dark beer. Oliver attended to the camp only with his ears.

The air at his back was cool and only lightly stirring. He got but hints from the fire, but was content. The night was close behind his ears. The meat was as good as Morca’s meat. Oliver was well content to sit and fill himself. He did not look up even when he sipped and savored his beer. He did listen.

This was a restless camp. There was much moving to and fro, voices were quick and intense. He could hear much drinking and the rowdy games born of much drinking. Women laughed. The wild men proved their wildness. There were many arrivals.

He heard Girard speak to his friend Mainard of being the new Jehannes as it was prophesied. And he heard Mainard answer as though he was but biding his own moment to talk.

He heard a women shriek and then laugh. And then he heard a man protest and many laugh.

He did not hear the Man of the Woods. Almost he looked to find him.

He heard the wild outlaw who had spoken of Morca as the Hammer of Gradis boast of the Gets he would kill.

A woman came to him and asked him if he would have more beer. Without looking at her, he held his cup to be filled.

He heard great tumult, laughter, and hooting as many chased one around the campfire and threw him down and beat him. And then there was a turnabout.

He heard many wild outlaws boast of the beer they would drink.

There was a serious fight and one was hurt.

He heard Girard speak to his friend Mainard of his clothes from Palsance that were left behind in the cache and other things. And he heard Mainard say, to avoid answer, “With so many Gets about, we may find one or two to kill, if we be careful.”

Duke Girard said then, “Mainard, my friend, be serious. With Morca dead, I am certain that this must be the moment to strike at the Gets. But now I am asking you of what is being worn at Richard’s court and who is being talked about and what is being said of my poems.”

But after that, Oliver opened his eyes and came to his feet. He left his place of silent attention behind. For suddenly, as Duke Girard spoke, there was one more arrival in the great fire circle. And there was a voice that said, “I am Haldane, the son of Black Morca! I will kill all you dream creatures!”

The voice was not the voice of Haldane. The voice was the voice of Giles, the strange grandson of old Sailor Noll.

Oliver opened his eyes to see Giles the peasant boy, Giles the fool, the young simpleton in his smock. He was gripped by a great wild outlaw dressed in animal skins. This one threw Giles to the ground before Duke Girard.

“He says that he is the son of Black Morca. When I spoke of you, he wished to fight, Haldane against Girard, so I brought him here to you.”

“I am the son of Black Morca. I am Haldane. Had I my sword, I would have slain you, wild man.”

Drunken men cheered at the audacity of this silly boy’s words. As Oliver stood, he saw the Man of the Woods rise to the boy’s assistance. The man of strange feature and fine black hair knelt to brush the dirt away. But though he beat at the smock of the Nestorian boy, Oliver’s spell held true.

Girard looked down at the boy sprawled before the fire. “You say you are the son of the King of the Gets.”

“Do you not believe he is, my lord?” asked Oliver. He was become portent again. His plate was cast aside. His jack was upset. He recked for nothing. “You have been warned, but warned for nought. Now, listen whilst you are warned again. This is a Nestorian boy, a simple lad. But this boy is inhabited by the voice of Haldane, the son of Black Morca. What he says, Haldane would say. Harken to him. Contest with him if you would be heir of Jehannes.”

The man in brown, the Man of the Woods, withdrew attention from himself then. He became nobody and was not in sight. And so also the wild outlaw. Haldane stood and looked to Duke Girard. And then to Oliver. He raged around and pointed in a circle to all the standing men.

“I will kill all here,” said Haldane.

In front of the man of portent, he said, “I know you. I know you, Sailor Noll. I will kill you first, devious one. Are you master of the dream?”

Duke Girard stepped forth then, casting off Mainard’s restraining hand. He had his look of lostness with him again, as though he saw in leagues but not in lesser distances.

“Do you dream too?” asked Girard.

“Who are you?” asked Haldane.

“I dream I am Girard. It is very strange to be Girard. What do you dream?”

“I dream . . . I dream . . . I do not know what I dream. I think I dream that . . . No. I do not know what I dream, but I know that I dream.”

“But you are Haldane?”

“I am Haldane! Yes. I am Haldane.”

Girard smiled then, a slow sweet smile. He stepped boldly. His men cheered him. Some threw ale and wounding words at the boy who spoke for Haldane. Even the wild men watched Girard with new respect, thinking they might become soldiers rather than outlaws.

For Girard said, “In my dream, Morca is dead and his beribboned head sits on a sharpened stake.”

And Haldane screamed and shook his head and fell to his knees. He struck at the ground with the flat of his hands.

Men cried at him, “We will kill Haldane and all Gets,” and “We will throw you to the ground as your father threw your mother,” and “The Gets eat dogs.”

This last must hurt Haldane because the Gets would not eat dog and did not like those who did.

Girard said, “In my dream, Haldane must hide from all other Gets who will kill him. But Girard leads his soldiers against the Gets and sweeps them away in the name of the Goddess, and all holy inspiration. I am the Prince of Bary, the heir of Jehannes who came of Bary. You are no prince. You are not even a baron. If I knew where you were in truth, and not just in word, I would kill you as I would a beetle, with the heel of my shoe.”

Haldane said, “I am a baron. I am a baron.” But then the stupid peasant boy face he wore broke into pieces in the most comical way. “But my army is dead.”

And the outlaws all laughed at him in his bewilderment and grief.

Haldane looked at Sailor Noll, who stood silently watching. He scrambled toward him over the ground like a piglet in panic.

Haldane said to Sailor Noll, “If you are the dream master, will you not make the whirling stop? I cannot hold on to anything and I am confused.”

Gay young Girard called, “If you are the dream master, my sailor, then let the dream play on. I know now who I really am, and I thank you. I am grateful.” He laughed.

All Duke Girard’s soldiers cried for him and longed for Gets to kill. They would become an army, a state, more than a state.

Mainard called in joy, “I am your good right hand, Girard. I am your good right hand.”

Girard said, “You doubted me.”

“I do not doubt you now.”

“Then shred your coat,” said Girard.

But such was the force of passion here that Mainard ripped the new court coat from his back in the instant of Girard’s words. He had a knife out and he laid the coat to the ground in strips and pieces.

Girard stood over Haldane, who lay at the feet of Sailor Noll. Girard said, “You cannot face me in my glory. I have bound myself to Libera and I will rule the world and write poems to her. Do you not see?” And he pointed to the fine court coat of Palsance that was now rags as if it were proof. “I am Libera’s Liege. I am the heir of Jehannes.”

Haldane the Fool, Haldane the Double Fool, Haldane the Fool of the Fool of the World; Haldane, in the guise of the Nestorian boy, Giles—he who had been struck by a swinging boom when he was small, he whose eye was like a staring agate—Haldane gazed at Duke Girard, Libera’s Liege, the heir of Jehannes, and at crooked Sailor Noll, the portent, the master of the dream, as these two stood above him, and knew that he was helpless.

It was wrong. It was not right. He said, “But she told me I was Libera’s Liege. I understand nothing. I understand nothing.”

Then he cried, “Libera, free me!” in a voice that was all his agony.

He fainted then. After a moment, he relaxed as he lay and betrayed himself, wetting his smock before the whole camp of outlaws.

Girard looked down at the incontinent Nestorian peasant boy who lay as dead. Then he turned to his friend Mainard, standing on the rags of his court coat.

“You saw it all,” young Girard said. “Am I the heir of Jehannes, or am I not?”

Mainard nodded.

Duke Girard turned to Sailor Noll. “I am, am I not?”

Sailor Noll nodded.

The soldiers of the duke all cried their passions. They cheered Girard for his dream, and they drank to him. They drank into the night, and some of them came to kick Haldane. Haldane did not protest. He lay on the ground and moaned, and sometimes his limbs twitched.

When Haldane woke, it was some other time. He lay on the hard cold ground. The camp was as silent as a winter grave. All the outlaws did not move, nor could Haldane hear them breathe. They slept as the dead sleep under their warm snow blankets, without turning.

The moon was set, her eyes no longer witness. Only the Get Fathers watched from above, their distant stare brilliant and crystalline. They had never reached Haldane when he had striven to call upon them. Perhaps they had never tried to come. Perhaps he had never called aright.

The wind died suddenly.

The fire embers, red a moment before, ceased to glow.

Haldane’s heart stilled in anticipation. All his life, it seemed to him, had been a mystery. He understood none of it. All that had seemed secure, seemed secure no longer, as though it had become past mystery antecedent to present mystery. And this moment was the sum of all those that had come before it. This moment he was in the presence of total mystery. He knew nothing. He was nothing. He was helpless, and he sat up, spread his arms and hands upward, and opened his mouth in gaping helplessness.

He was surrendered.

And in that instant, his heart was struck like so much ice on the anvil of a smith. And he was become Haldane again—Haldane the Whirly-Headed, who reserved from surrender.

For as he sat helpless, of a sudden a light but powerful grip seized his chin from behind and a finger skated over his teeth like a single foot on winter ice.

“In truth, I do believe that you are marked as Mine, though I had doubted it,” said a voice. It was the rich firm voice of a woman of command, like a Nestorian nurse when he was small or his mother.

In cold fear, Haldane turned to see who it was treating him so. The hair on his neck prickled. He saw a giant woman’s body but One who was not a woman. He saw warts and growths and thought of the horrid snow monkeys of which Oliver had told him, and of nightmare pigs. But She was more whelming than either. She was more than he could bear.

“Are you Libera?” he asked. “Are you the One I dread?”

The Thing-Woman gobbled hideously. Haldane looked about him, but no one roused at the sound. All continued to lie silent and still.

If this was Libera, then this light by which he could see Her more clearly than night should allow was Libera’s light, and this time in which all slept but Haldane was Libera’s time. The face of the creature altered before Haldane’s sight and became such that Haldane must look away, then back, then away again. His limbs were boneless before Her and he disgraced himself again, bright and hot on his leg.

“You are as artless as the flimsy cantrip you hide under,” She said. “Poor wee warrior.” She laughed or cried again, and Her various growths shook like colored caterpillars in the wind. “You should be abed. It is late. Come ride My horse until you sleep and I will judge you. I will see whether you are Mine, or whether you are yours, or whether you are Someone Else’s. Come horsie, come; give infant Giles a lullaby ride.”

Haldane could not even say, “I am not Giles! I am Haldane!” His mouth would not work.

He cowered before Her. His eyes were lowered to the ground because he could not bear the sight of Her. He heard the sound of Her steed as it picked its way through the camp and he feared to look upon the beast. Its sound was clopping, seeming aimless, slowly wandering. Then it ceased. She—Libera?—made the noise She made once again then, as though that were the call by which She fetched Her horse. Closer it ambled. It stopped. Was it here? Where was it?

When Haldane could not bear waiting longer, he looked up at Her. And when he looked at Her, She, the great Thing-Woman, gestured to Her night horse. She gobbled again, Her face bright blue and red in the darkness that surrounded him. But there was not the sound of hooves again. Instead, at that moment, there was hot moist breath on Haldane’s neck.

He started hugely and scrambled about. Libera’s horsie was limned as brightly as milk in twilight. Her steed was the great wurox cow, head lowered. It was larger than any natural animal. Libera and Her beast made Haldane feel smaller than small again, as he had when the world was huge. The wurox gazed at Haldane and looked as though she might speak. She opened her mouth and lowed. He could not bear the sound.

Libera seized him suddenly in a grip that took no account of his dignity or manliness. She whirled him through the air and set him down on the broad felt back of Her white cow. The cow shook her head. There was no purchase and Haldane felt that he was about to fall from a great height, and was frantic. He was aswim. He scrambled to help himself, but could find no help.

“You must ride around my old standing stone like thread around a spool,” said Libera, She of hideous aspect. And She gestured at the rock which Haldane could suddenly see, standing like a brother by the camp.

“You must ride around it three times, and if you fall off, I will eat you alive,” said She. “I would you held on tight.” And She put Her face close to Haldane, showed Her white teeth in their dark red gums, and made Her lures to jump and jiggle.