The Wicked Day (58 page)

“Aye,” said the old man, smiling. “That they are.”

“At least for a while,” said Jute. “Tell me again about your house.”

And Severan told him. It was the third time since they had left Hearne, but Severan did not mind. Even the ghost remained interested, despite a tendency to lecture them about architecture.

“It’s more of a cottage than a house,” said Severan, “though I can’t rightly say what the distinction is between a house and a cottage. You’ll know when you see it. My grandfather built it for his wife, for she was from the islands and was homesick for the sight of them. My father would have given it to my brother Lannaslech, but he would not take it. He knew I loved the place. The cottage sits at the top of a cliff overlooking the sea. Built sturdy and stout enough of stone that even the wind thinks twice before taking a blow at it. It’s a cheerful thing during the winter nights to have a fire burning on the hearth. But the cottage is lonely and without any of your bustle and excitement of Hearne. And once you’ve grown accustomed to the sound of the wind and the sea below on the rocks, it’s a silent place.”

“Oh, I won’t mind that,” said Jute. He stirred restlessly in his saddle. His hand crept to his side and Severan saw a shadow of pain cross his face.

“Silence is nothing to be concerned about,” said the ghost, who clearly was no longer paying much attention to the conversation. “I’m always happy to fill the little gaps. Why, you haven’t even heard any of my celebrated lectures on cooking with magic. You’ll be fascinated. There’s nothing quite like roasting goat with a judicious sprinkling of powdered lightning.”

“Powdered lightning!” snorted Severan. “Cooking with magic! I’ve heard quite a few from you, ghost, but this beats ‘em all. Are you really sure you were Staer Gemyndes?”

“I’ll have you know that lightning can be powdered,” said the ghost. “You merely, well, you merely. . . er. . .”

“You see?” said Severan.

Jute did not say anything, and the ghost looked at him anxiously. “You don’t mind, do you?” said the ghost in a low voice. “I can’t help myself. It’s just who I am. I’m a ghost, even if I once was Staer Gemyndes. I have to talk, otherwise I’ll forget I exist and that’ll be the end of me. I suppose I could just leave, if you want me to,” continued the ghost miserably. “I should, shouldn’t I? I’m just a ghost. You’re going to have a real home now, and you don’t need a ghost cluttering up the place. I might as well tell you how to make me leave. It’s simple. All you have to do is—”

“No, don’t tell me,” said Jute. “I don’t want to know. I like having you about. We’re friends, don’t you see?”

“Friends?” said the ghost, sounding as if it were about to burst into tears. “Friends? Do you mean it? Oh, blessed day!”

And, with that, to everyone’s great surprise, the ghost was silent for a long time. It had not had a friend in hundreds of years and the thought was almost too much to bear. Besides, a happy ghost does not need to talk all the time.

They did not stop in Lastane but camped beyond the town in a hollow shielded by trees. The company built a fire and put up tents for the night. Several of them threw out baited lines in the stream that ran through the valley, and soon fish were baking in the fire. While they were eating their supper, Maernes, the duke of Hull, rode up out of the night and joined them.

“The land still tells me of visitors, when it will,” he said.

He did not reproach them for avoiding his hospitality in Lastane, but sat by the fire, trading stories with the other men. Jute drowsed with a cloak wrapped around him. He fell asleep and then awoke later with a start, sure that all were gone and even Severan had left him, but the others were still sitting around the fire, talking in low voices, and he fell back asleep.

They crossed the northern fork of the Ciele River and passed on into Thule. The land grew wilder as they went. Hills interrupted the expanse of the plain, and then sudden valleys dropped down into the early shadows of afternoon. They topped a rise and before them lay the bay of Averlay. The little town shone in the late sunlight further along the curve of the shore.

“The fishermen sail from here to the Flessoray Islands,” said Declan. He sat on his horse, staring down at the bay shining below them. He touched the pearl at his neck. “It takes about eight hours with a good wind.”

“Let’s stop here for the night,” said Severan. “There’s an excellent inn down by the pier. Fresh bread, fish, and featherbeds.”

“I’d rather not,” said Jute. “There’ll be people and whispers and staring faces. I don’t think I can stand much more of that.”

“No, lad. We’re near the border of Harlech. Folks don’t ask questions up here. They won’t know your face. Besides, a loaf of bread and some hot fish stew—who can turn that down?”

And so Jute agreed. To be honest, though, he was more interested in a featherbed than the food. The thought of rest, of a very long sleep, was particularly appealing.

He looked to the east and it seemed as if he could see a great distance, all the way to the Mountains of Morn themselves. They were dark and full of shadows that grew and deepened as the sun slanted further away into the west. He shivered.

“It'll always seek to return,” he said, not realizing he spoke out loud. “It won't rest.”

“What’s that?” said Severan.

“Nothing,” said Jute. “I was just thinking. It’s not important. At least, not now.” He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sweet heather scent in the air. “The hawk loved these skies. I remember now. The further north we went, the happier he was.”

Severan said nothing, for this was the first time Jute had mentioned the hawk in days. He glanced over at the boy, but Jute’s face was serene.

“He said the sky was deeper here,” continued the boy. “I never knew what he meant, and he never bothered to explain, but I understand now.”

They left Averlay early that next morning. The air was cold and clean. After a while, they topped a rise. The road angled along the top of a ridge of weathered granite, pine trees, and heather. The land stretched out in a vast sweep of purple and green and gray. Far below them, the sea shone and trembled with life.

Rane nudged his horse alongside them. “Look. Off to the west where the headlands rise up. That’s where we’re going. We’ll have you there before nightfall.”

“Home,” said Severan.

“Home,” said the ghost happily.

“Home,” said Jute.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

ENDINGS

Arodilac Bridd settled reluctantly into the job of ruling Hearne. He was wise enough to listen to Owain Gawinn, and on his counsel, he married the youngest daughter of the duke of Thule. She was pretty, with the dark green eyes and brown hair that mark so many of those from Thule, and could ride a horse better than Arodilac. More importantly, she had a sharp mind and did not suffer fools gladly. With such a bride, Arodilac quickly settled down to marriage and ruling a city. He did well at both, but this was just as much his wife’s due as it was his.

Owain Gawinn had stern words with his children when he got home the night after the battle. Secretly, however, he was very proud of them. They were Gawinns, through and through, even Fen. Sibb, of course, had her own words with her husband about trying to get himself killed for the second time in one week, but this was in the privacy of their bedroom. Such arguments rarely lasted long between those two and usually ended in laughter.

Owain resumed the old duties that had been carried out by every Gawinn before him. He set about building the wreckage of the Guard back into full strength. More young men would come forward to learn the arts of war and peace under his tutelage. It was during the last years of his life that a tower was constructed at the Rennet Gap, from whose heights watchmen would forevermore gaze east to wait for that which might come again someday.

Declan Farrow wandered about Tormay and found himself back in Hearne. He spent several weeks there, urged to stay by the new regent, who seemed to have forgotten all about the girl named Liss Galnes. Owain Gawinn, however, did not say anything in this matter. He, probably more than any other, wished to see Declan’s sword and knowledge stay in the service of the city, but he also understood the restlessness in the man and could not bring himself to speak a single word in persuasion.

Declan had never felt at home within city walls before, but now it was even worse. The stone buildings and cobbled streets seemed foreign to him, as if made for a race that had never included him, and he found himself dreaming of wide-open spaces, of plains and mountains and lonely valleys, and always, of course, of the sea. Arodilac offered him a captaincy in Owain Gawinn’s Guard and, with it, a manor and lands north of the city. For a moment Declan’s heart leapt at the thought. To be part of the nobility. It was something he had dreamt of ever since he had been a boy, ever since he had stolen his father’s sword to ride south to Vomaro and glory. But he knew that it could never be. He thanked Arodilac for the offer and left Hearne the next day.

Declan rode back into the north, that is certain. Of the rest of his life, there is much disagreement, though all agree that the painted caravans of the Farrow clan were never again seen trundling about the duchies of Tormay. Declan was the last of that blood. Some historians say that he settled in Thule and lived peaceably to an old age. Others maintain that he wandered east, across the Mountains of Morn and into the great wastes, where he was killed by those nameless things that doubtless dwell there, creatures that serve the Dark and cannot abide the race of man.

Still others write that he made his way to the coast of Harlech and from there to the Flessoray Islands. One particular legend has it that Declan Farrow lived for several years on the westernmost island of Flessoray. Usually, the island only had inhabitants during the summer when fisherfolk from other islands came to gather mussels. It is said that he built a boat, no larger than a single-masted coracle, and sailed away into the west where no man has gone before. Declan Farrow was never seen again in Tormay. Story has it that he left his sword in a cave on the island, where it was found many years later by a young fisherboy. Whatever was Declan's fate, he never did sleep without dreaming of the sea. And of the girl who had once been named Liss Galnes.

Eaomod, the prince of Harth, reached his father’s court in Damarkan five days after the battle at the southern pass of the Morn Mountains. His steed died under him a day after leaving the battleground, its heart giving out from exhaustion. The prince continued on foot, walking through the days and nights across the stony landscape that comprises the terrain of the northernmost desert. When he arrived at the gates of Damarkan, he was so burnt by the sun and in such sorry straits that the city guards almost turned him back to the hovels of the poor that crowd up around that great city’s walls. But he convinced them otherwise, and they allowed him through. News of the prince’s arrival preceded him to his father’s court, and he entered the palace amidst a great throng that gaped and cheered and called out his name. Within the palace, however, the court waited: row upon row of silked and bejeweled lords and ladies, the counselors and pet wizards of the king, and the officers of the guard.

It is not clearly recorded what was said then, but it is known that the king rose from his throne, his face black with fury and his voice thundering. The prince, his son, stood before him silent. Some stories tell that the prince was then banished from his father’s court. These stories tell how he journeyed south, further even than any man had traveled before, and came to a far-off land of ice and snow where he founded a kingdom that, as far as anyone knows, still stands to this day.

Giverny Farrow disappeared from history. But she did not disappear from legend, for legend and history tend to be two very different things. Every duchy had their own stories about her and her wolf, stories of her protection and wisdom and blessing, stories of how she brought home a lost child or a lost lamb or how she routed a band of ogres. But as the centuries passed, these tales came to be believed only by children and the very wise. Of course, this did not hold true in Harlech and the north, for those people have a very long memory, and for them, history and legend tend to be the same thing.

What about the sceadu, standing in the darkness of the tunnels, deep within the earth? I’m afraid that his existence was forgotten by those who should have remembered. We can only hope that the book of the
Gerecednes
kept him spellbound for much longer than a hundred years. For even a hundred years tends to go by quite quickly. The ghost always did have a bad memory, so when he said a hundred years, we can only hope he meant a thousand years. At any rate, if the sceadu does finish reading the book someday, it’ll be someone else’s job to deal with him, and I don’t envy them at all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

WHERE THE WIND WILL BLOW

On a cold, windy day in September, Giverny came walking along the heights of Lannaslech, where rock and sea and sky met in a sharp alliance that cut at the cloth of the heavens—or so the lords of Harlech have said of their sky since long ages past. The wolf Ehtan paced at her side. Far below them, at the foot of the cliffs, the sea rolled its relentless tide against the rocks, kicking up foam that misted in the air. Gulls wheeled in long, slow arcs across the sky. The girl stopped and sat on a rock to listen to their cries. She closed her eyes and turned her face up toward the pale sunlight. The wolf settled near her feet.