Weatherwitch: Book Three of The Crowthistle Chronicles (15 page)

“What about the son?”

“He did as his father bade him.”

“So they both became ruch gintlemin, eh?”

“Aye, and they lived in a grandhouse, waited on by more servants than you could count on both hands, and there were fine horses in the stables.”

“Thet’s not a proper tale,” complained one of the grandchildren.

“ ‘Tain’t finished yet,” said the beggar promptly. “The old miner got older, so old that he died. The son took to thinking, why should he work hard for the knockers—”

“Or bockles,” interjected Heidrun Squüdfitcher.

“—or bockles, and leave a tenth of the precious ore all nice and clean for them when he could have it all to himself? And so he sought to cheat the little miners, and day by day the portion he left for them became smaller and smaller, but he thought, ‘They won’t notice the difference, the little chewets; anyway, how can they know how much ore my men bring to grass each day?’”

“Oh!” said the grandchildren. The light of foreknowledge dawned on their features. They were fully cognizant that wights had their own mysterious ways of finding out information. “But he was mustakin, was he not?”

“He was indeed. His own greed and foolishness it was that ruined him. Wights are canny. The lode failed, and from that time on nothing answered with him. In his disappointment he took to drink, squandered all the money his father had made, and ended up a beggar.”

“Like you, Master Soup,” piped one of the children.

“Aye,” said Cat Soup, nodding sadly, “like me.” And he swiveled a blood-shot eyeball to stare thoughtfully into his tankard.

“Lit thet be a warning to you, my led,” admonished the child’s father, seizing this handy opportunity to lecture his son on moral principles. “Do not be greedy or you might ind up ez a useless old biggar.”

“Useless?” the storyteller swiveled his eye again, fixing it on the speaker. “Old I am, but useless, no.”

“Storytillung passes the time, Soup, but ‘tuz hardly
useful.”

“I do more than amuse people with my tales. I
see
things,” said Cat Soup, and he tapped the side of his nose with an air of secret knowledge. “I see things what others do not see. I hear things, too.” He paused for dramatic effect. “And that can be
very
useful.” The old man leaned forward with a confidential air, as if about to impart a momentous secret, although if he had expected everyone to inch closer in order to catch every word he was disappointed, for they recoiled
from his fetid breath. Undeterred he murmured, “Last time I was down south in Cathair Rua I heard some gossip; ill-natured gossip.”

The old man seldom passed on information without weighing it thoroughly in advance, to ensure it contained nothing that might prove injurious to him. This unsubstantiated rumor seemed to fit the bill, and it would certainly elevate his status among the wagoners as a repository of knowledge.

The children gazed at him, wide-eyed. Their elders looked expectant.

“Scandal and defamation,” said Cat Soup with significant nod and a twitch of his scraggy eyebrows, “a nasty buzz such as there ain’t never been before, not in my memory.”

“Well?” his hosts demanded impatiently after a pause.

“They
say”
said Cat Soup, quickly glancing over his shoulder to enhance his dramatic role, “although I do not believe it for a minute, that the weathermasters, of all gentlefolk, are turning greedy and lazy! That they are setting exorbitant prices for their services and not doing half so good a job as what they used to do! They
say
the weathermasters are no longer honorable and worthy of esteem. Personally I believe it is all false report. I am only telling you what I heard; the word in the street so to speak.”

Astonished, the elder wagoners proceeded animatedly to discuss this bizarre news among themselves. The children, however, dismissed the matter after scant deliberation and requested another story.

Far away in the night, golden-eyed frogs were performing creaky refrains.

Nine days later, on a Moon’s Day, as the sun began yet again to fall from its apogee, the convoy of wagons passed a fork in the road called “Blacksmith’s Corner.” While the wagons continued their journey south, the branch to the right turned away west, leading to the mountain ring. Up to the gates of High Darioneth it climbed, zigzagging steeply up the mountainside through tall forests of eucalypt and fern.

Clouds had cleared from the skies above the high country, and the after-noon was bright. In Long Gables, the Great Hall of the Weathermasters, the tables and settles had been pushed back against the walls. Cold and dark gaped the fireplaces. They had been swept clean of cinders, and kindling had been laid in readiness for the next blaze. The chandeliers on their hoops of marigold brass remained unlit. Daylight streamed in at the windows, laving
the hall’s spacious interior with ripples of light distorted by flawed glass panes.

The swordmaster’s apprentice lolled at one end of the chamber. In the center of the floor of polished boards stood Asrathiel, dressed in the usual costume of the heavy-weapon duelist; gloves, boots, light helm, cuirass, gorget and mask. Her sleeveless doublet, close-fitting her whiplash waist, reached to mid-thigh. At each flank it was slit from hem to belt. The loosely flowing sleeves of the drop-shouldered shirt were gathered at the cuffs, and the trousers were tucked into supple knee-boots. She had laced a cuirass of thick leather over these garments. Her hair, spun strands of shadow, had been bundled up with pins and thrust beneath the fencing-cap. Her legs too were armored, and a swordbelt girded her narrow hips. From it hung a scabbard intricately carven with intertwining foliate patterns. A small shield, carried on her left forearm, completed the set of equipment.

The swordmaster stood facing her, on guard and similarly armored. His lean features, visible before he lowered his mask, were furrowed and scarred, indicating middle age, wiry strength and much combat practice. He was neither tall nor stout, but he exuded the poise of a fighter with many years’ experience, and balanced on the balls of his feet as if prepared to spring into the air or leap in any direction without notice.

He nodded.

Simultaneously, he and the damsel reached their right hands across their bodies, grasped the hilts of their weapons and withdrew them from the sheaths. A subtle shift took place in the demeanor of the swordmaster’s apprentice. His stance altered from relaxation to vigilance. Loudly he shouted, “Lay on!” and the lesson commenced.

The swords were made of wood; this was, after all, a practice session. For a few moments student and tutor circled one another warily, their weapons held at the ready, each scrutinizing the other for evidence of some weakness, trying to estimate the timing of the other’s intention to strike so that it might be preempted, and advantage thereby gained. Losing patience, Asrathiel decided to attack. She drove a thrust forward. Her opponent stepped aside, pivoted on his heel and struck a glancing blow off her shoulder.

“One!” he called out, even as she danced out of his reach. “I have severed the sinews in your left arm.”

Asrathiel pursed her lips in an expression of combined resolution and de-liberation. The duelists held each other at bay for another instant, before the swordmaster feinted to mislead her, following the feint with a straight thrust. She parried and counterattacked; he took her blade in a circular
movement and swept it aside, but before he could profit from her vulnerability she ducked, dodged and jumped backwards.

“There is no use playing by the rules,” said the swordmaster. “When you are fighting for your life, there are no rules.”

“I would not know,” his opponent replied, between arrogance and bitterness. It was unclear whether the swordmaster understood the strange truth about her; that she was immortal and invulnerable. Perhaps Avalloc had informed him.

“Make believe,” said the swordmaster, and suddenly he attacked with great speed and ferocity, lunging again and again, driving her back. The shields and wooden palings clattered against each other. Asrathiel fought with strength and determination, focusing her mental energies, endeavoring moment by moment to foresee his moves and counter them.

At last her tutor performed an expert
prise de fer.
Asrathiel’s weapon flew from her grasp, skidded across the floor and rattled to a stop against a table. Momentarily disconcerted, she lost her balance and stumbled. The sword-master executed a flying fleche, the point of his sword arriving on her ribs well before his feet touched the floor.

Asrathiel glanced down. The sword was a sharpened stake pointing at her heart.

“Two,” said her tutor.

He paused for effect, before withdrawing his blade and holding it vertically in front of his face, to salute his defeated opponent.

They bowed to one another, and then he sheathed his weapon while Asrathiel ran across the floor to retrieve hers.

“You fought well,” the swordmaster complimented her.

“Not well enough,” she said.

They spent the remainder of the afternoon hard at work, he demonstrating how she might improve her technique, she relentlessly practicing until she knew she had mastered each maneuver, then continuing to practice, as though she strived for nothing less than perfection.

At the close of the day, after they had ceased their drill and parted company, Asrathiel returned to the House of Maelstronnar. Just before sunset, the never-sleeping wind of the highlands began to blow harder. Having bathed, the damsel took herself to the covered and colonnaded ambulatory that ran along the walls of the courtyard. In the center of the court a stone lion spouted water into the basin of a fountain. Nearby, five carved pedestals supported ceramic urns, from which spilled filigrees of foliage. She seated
herself upon a wooden bench, drying her hair in the wind, resting after the bout of exercise and untangling the smoky abundance of her locks with her silver comb.

Dusk intensified. Thick layers of cloud swarmed across the stars, obliterating them. The air was chill but Asrathiel, although barefoot, felt no discomfort. In the shelter of the court the fountain chimed glassy notes, its droplets sparkling in the mellow radiance spilling from the lamp-lit windows, while outside the walls the cries of birds returning to their roosts tore through the moaning of the wind. The air was redolent with the thick aromas of baking and stewing that wafted from the kitchen.

As she combed her hair, the damsel pondered on her training session that day. Having made mental notes to herself about her performance, she turned her attention to the fact that her claim to the estate of the Sorcerer of Strang had recently been published through the correct channels in both Cathair Rua and King’s Winterbourne, and so far nobody had gainsaid the declaration. It appeared she was to officially inherit the site of the old Dome in Orielthir. The thought pleased her, although she could not explain why. Anticipating success, she had already informed the prentices and journey-men of Rowan Green that they might travel to Orielthir whenever they had the time and the inclination, to fossick amongst the ruins. Dristan had promised his children he would take them to Strang so that they could see the remains of the famous fortress for themselves. Asrathiel intended to journey there eventually, after she had finished her studies, celebrated her nineteenth birthday and precociously received the title “Weathermage.”

At length her mind drifted on other pathways, wandering to meditations about the goat-legged wight, with which she had not exchanged words for some weeks. It would be a pity, were it to permanently shun her company. The creature was a type of heirloom, and she would resent being deprived of it. She had spied it, now and then, lurking in various locations not far from the Maelstronnar house; near the Tower of the Winds, or by the entrance to the underground storehouses and smithy, or upon the leafy margins of the launching place.

Through the shining curtain of her tresses, as she raked them, she caught sight of an alteration amongst the low shrubs of lavender bordering the cloisters. A transition shivered through the leaves, and the urisk, coincidentally, was manifest.

“Oh, ‘tis you,” Asrathiel commented. Disguising her smugness she resumed her combing. “How are the frighteners these days?”

“There’s no knowing,” said the urisk in the lavender. “You might ask them.”

Rich lamplight bloomed in more windows of the house. The odor of roast beef pervaded the courtyard.

“Faugh!” snorted the urisk. “The stench of charred flesh is offensive.”

“We call it ‘cooking,’ ” Asrathiel said dryly. She shook her head. Droplets flew. “Yet I agree, the smell of meat is distasteful. I never eat flesh.” Sensing the customary discontent of the shaggy-haunched manikin, she tacked on a casual effort to mollify him. “The cook, however, prepares delicious recipes of vegetables, and the most splendid puddings. Come with me into the kitchen. I shall find you a dish to your taste.”

“That’s unlikely.”

“Do you not need anything?”

“Perhaps.”

“You never ask for so much as a scrap.”

Apparently afflicted with ennui, the wight merely lounged against a column with his arms crossed, as he had leaned on the parapet of the stone bridge.