Lore of Witch World (Witch World Collection of Stories) (Witch World Series) (3 page)

There was one foretelling which she would not do, after she came upon its secret by chance only. For she had taken the hand of little Hulde during the Harvest Homing dance. Straightway thereafter, Dairine dropped her grasp upon the child's small fingers, crying out and shrinking away from the villagers, to seek out Ingvarna's house and therein hide herself. Within the month, Hulde had died of a fever. Thereafter, the girl used her new sight sparingly, and always with a fear plain to be seen haunting her.

In the Year of the Weldworm, when Dairine passed into young womanhood, Ingvarna died swiftly. As if foreseeing another possible end, she summoned death as one summons a servant to do one's bidding.

Though Dairine was no true Wise Woman, thereafter she took on many of the duties of her foster mother. Within a month after the Wise Woman's burial, the Sulcar ship returned.

As the Captain told the forgotten village the news of the greater world his eyes turned ever to Dairine, her hands busy with thread she spun as she listened. Among those of the village she was indeed one apart, with her strange silver-fair hair, silver-light eyes.

Sibbald Ortis, Sibbald the Wrong-Handed—thus they had named him after a sea battle had lopped off his hand, and a smith in another land had made him one of metal—was that captain. He was new to command and young—though he had lived near all his life at sea after the manner of his people.

Peace, after a fashion, he told them, had encompassed the land at last. For Koris of Gorm now ruled Estcarp with a steady hand. Alizon had been defeated in some invasion that nation had attempted overseas. And Karsten was in chaos, one prince or lord always rising against another, while the sea wolves were being hunted down, one after another, to a merciless end.

Having made clear that he was in Rannock on lawful business, the captain now turned briskly to the subject of trade. What had they, if anything, which would be worth stowage in his own ship?

Herdrek was loathe to spread their poverty before these strangers. Also, he wanted, with a desire he could hardly conceal, some of the tools and weapons he had seen in casual use among them. Yet what had Rannock? Fish dried to take them through a lean winter, some woven lengths of wool.

The villagers would be hard put even to give these visitors guest-right, with the feast they were entitled to. To fail in that was to deny their own heritage.

Dairine, listening to the Captain, had wished she dared touch his hand to learn what manner of a man he was who had journeyed so far and seen so much. A longing was born in her to be free of the narrow, well-known ways of Rannock, to see what lay beyond in the world. Her fingers steadily twirled her thread, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

Then she lifted her head a little, for she knew someone was now standing at her side. There was the tang of sea-salted leather and other odors. This was a stranger, one of the Sulcar men.

“You work that thread with skill, maid.”

She recognized the captain's voice. “It is my skill, Lord Captain.”

“They tell me that fate has served you harshly.” He spoke bluntly then, but she
liked him the better for that bluntness.

“Not so, Lord Captain. These of Rannock have been ever kind. And I was fosterling to their Wise Woman. Also, my hands serve well, if my eyes are closed upon this world. Come, you, and see!” She spoke with pride as she arose from her stool, thrusting her spindle into her girdle.

Thus Dairine brought him to her cottage, sweet within for all its scents of herbs. She gestured to where stood the loom Herdrek had made her.

“As you see, Lord Captain, I am not idle, even though I may be blind.”

She knew that there, in the half-done web, there was no mistake.

Ortis was silent for a moment. Then she heard the hiss of his breath expelled in wonder.

“But this is weaving of the finest! There is no fault in color or pattern. . . . How can this be done?”

“With one's two hands, Lord Captain!” She laughed. “Here, give me a possession of yours that I may show you better how fingers can be eyes.”

Within her there was a new excitement for something told her that this was a moment of importance in her life. She heard then a faint swish as if some bit of woven stuff were being shaken free. A clinging length was pressed into the hand she held out.

“Tell me,” he commanded, “from whence came this, and how was it wrought?”

Back and forth between her fingers the girl slipped the ribband of silken stuff.

Woven—yes. But her “seeing” hands built no mind picture of human fingers at the business. No, strangely ill-formed were those members engaged in the weaving. And so swift were they also that they seemed to blur. No woman, as Dairine knew women, had fashioned this. But female—strongly, almost fiercely female.

“Spider silk—” She was not aware that she had spoken aloud until she heard the sound of her own words. “Yet not quite spider. A woman weaving—still, not a woman. . . .”

She raised the ribband to her cheek. There was a wonder in such weaving which brought to life in her a fierce longing to know more and more.

“You are right.” The captain's voice broke her preoccupation with that need to learn. “This comes from Usturt. Had a man but two full bolts of it within his cargo be could count triple profits from such a voyage alone.”

“Where lies Usturt?” Dairine demanded. If she could go there—learn what could be learned. “And who are the weavers? I do not see them as beings like unto our own people.”

She heard his breath hiss again. “To see the weavers,” he said in a low voice, “is death. They hate all mankind—”

“Not so, Lord Captain!” Dairine answered him then. “It is not mankind that they hate—it is all males.” From the strip between her fingers came that knowledge.

For a moment she was silent. Did he doubt her?

“At least no man sails willingly to Usturt,” he replied. “I had that length from one who escaped with his bare life. He died upon our deck shortly after we fished him from a waterlogged raft.”

“Captain,” she stroked the silk, “you have said that this weaving is a true treasure. My people are very poor and grow poorer. If one were to learn the secret of such weaving, might not good come of it?”

With a sharp jerk he took the ribband from her.

“There is no such way.”

“But there is!” Her words came in an eager tumble, one upon the other. “Women—or female things—wove this. They might treat with a woman—one who was already a weaver.”

Great, callused hands closed upon her shoulders.

“Girl, not for all the gold in Karsten would I send any Woman into Usturt! You know not of what you speak. It is true that you have gifts of the Talent. But you are no confirmed Guardian, and you are blind. What you suggest is such a folly—Aye, Vidruth, what is it now?”

Dairine had already sensed that someone had approached.

“The tide rises. For better mooring, captain, we need move beyond the rocks.”

“Aye. Well, girl, may the Right Hand of Lraken be your shield. When a ship calls, no captain lingers,”

Before she could even wish him well, he was gone. Retreating, she sat down on her hard bench by the loom. Her hands trembled, and from her eyes the tears seeped. She felt bereft, as if she had had for a space a treasure and it had been torn from her. She was certain that her instinct had been right, that if any could have learned the secret of Usturt, she was that one.

Now, when she put a hand out to finger her own weaving, the web on the loom seemed coarse, utterly ugly. In her mind, she held a queer vision of a deeply forested place in which great, sparkling webs ran in even strands from tree to tree.

Through the open door puffed a wind from the sea. Dairine lifted her face to it as it tugged at her hair.

“Maid!”

She was startled. Even with her keen ears she had not heard anyone approach, so loud was the wind song.

“Who are you?” she asked quickly.

^"
I am Vidruth, maid, mate to Captain Ortis.”

She arose swiftly. “He has thought more upon my plan?” She could see no other reason for the seaman to seek her out in this fashion.

“That is so, maid. He awaits us now. Give me your hand—so. . . .”

Fingers grasped hers tightly. She strove to free her hand. This man—there was that in him which was wrong. Then out of nowhere came a great smothering cloak, folded about her so tightly she could not struggle. There were unclean smells to affront her nostrils, but the worst was that this Vidruth had swung her up across his shoulder so that she could have been no more than a bundle of trade goods.

2

So was she brought aboard what was certainly a ship, for in spite of the muffling of the cloak, Dairine used her ears, her nose. However, she could not sort out her thoughts. Why had Captain Ortis so vehemently, and truthfully (for she had read that truth in his touch), refused to bring her? Then this man of his had come to capture her as he might steal a woman during some shore raid?

The Sulcarmen were not slave traders, that was well known. Then why?

Hands pulled away the folds of the cloak at last. The air she drew thankfully into her lungs was not fresh, rather tainted with stinks which made her feel unclean even to sniff. She thought that her prison must lie deep within the belly of the ship.

“Why have you done this?” Dairine asked of the man she could hear breathing heavily near her.

“Captain's orders,” he answered, leaning so close she not only smelt his unclean body but gathered with that a sensation of heat. “He has eyes in his head, has the captain. You be a smooth-skinned, likely wench—”

“Let her be, Wak!” That was Vidruth.

“Aye, captain,” the other answered with a slur of sly contempt. “Here she be, safe and sound—”

“And here she stays, Wak, safe from your kind. Get out!”

There was a growl from Wak, as if he were close to questioning the other's right so to order him. Then Dairine's ears caught a sound which might have been that of a panel door sliding into place.

“You are not the captain,” she spoke into the silence between them.

“There has been a change of command,” he returned. “The captain, he has not brought us much luck in months agone. When we learned that he would not try to better his fortune—he was—”

“Killed!”

“Not so. Think you we want a blood feud with all his clan? The Sulcarmen take not lightly to those who let the red life out of some one of their stock.”

“I do not understand. You are all Sulcar—”

“That we are not, girl. The world has changed since those ruled the waves about the oceans. They were fighters and fighting men get killed. The Kolder they fought, and they blew up Sulcarkeep in that fighting, taking the enemy—but also too many of their own—on into the Great Secret. Karsten they fought, and they were at the taking of Gorm, aye. Then they have patrolled against the sea wolves of Alizon. Men they have lost, many men. Now if they take a ship out of harbor they do it with others besides just their kin to raise sails and set the course. No, we do not kill Sibbald Ortis, we may need him later. But he is safe laid.

“Now let us to the business between us, girl. I heard the words you spoke with Ortis. Also did I learn much about you from those starvelings who live in Rannock. You have some of the Talents of the Wise Women, if you cannot call upon the full Power, blind as you are. You yourself said it—if any can treat with those devil females of Usturt, it must be one such as you.

“Think on that spider silk, girl. You held that rag that Ortis has. And you can do mighty things, unless all those at Rannock are crazed in their wits. Which I do not believe. This is a chance which a man may have offered to him but once in a lifetime.”

She heard the greed in his voice. Perhaps that greed would be her protection. Vidruth would take good care to keep her safe. Just as he held somewhere Sibbald Ortis for a like reason.

“Why did you take me so, if your intentions are good? If you heard my words to the captain, you know I would have gone willingly.”

He laughed. “Do you think those shore-side halflingmen would have let you go? With three quarters of the Guardians dead, their own Wise Woman laid also in her grave shaft, would they willingly have surrendered to us even your small Talent? The whole land is hard pressed now for any who hold even a scrap of the Power.

“No matter. They will welcome you back soon enough after you have learned the secret of Usturt. If it then still be in your mind to go to them.”

“But how do you know that in Usturt I shall work for you?”

“Because you will not want the captain to be given over to them. They do not have a pleasant way with captives.”

There was fear behind his words, a fear born of horror, which he fought to control.

“Also, if you do not do as we wish we can merely sail and leave you on Usturt for the rest of your life. No ship goes there willingly. A long life for you perhaps, girl, alone with none of your own kind—think of that.”

He was silent for a moment before he added, “It is a bargain, girl, one we swear to keep. You deal with the weavers, we take you back to Rannock, or anywhere else you name. The captain, he can be set ashore with you even. No more harm done. And a portion of the silk for your own. Why, you can buy all of Rannock and make yourself a Keep lady!”

“There is one thing—” She was remembering Wak. “I am not such a one as any of your men can take at his will. Know you not what happens then to any Talent I may possess?”

When Vidruth answered her there was a deep note of menace in his voice, though it was not aimed at her.

“All men know well that the Talent departs from a woman who lies with a man. None shall trouble you.”

“So be it,” she returned, with an outward calm it was hard for her to assume. “Have you the bit of silk? Let me learn from it what I can.”

She heard him move away the grate of whatever door kept snug her prison. As that sound ceased she put out her hands to explore. The cubby was small; there was a shelflike bunk against the wall, a stool which seemed bolted to the deck, nought else. Did they have Captain Ortis pent in such a hole also? And how had this Vidruth managed so well the takeover of the Captain's command? What she had read of Sibbald Ortis during their brief meeting did not lead her to think he was one easily overcome by an enemy.