The Song of Andiene

CHAPTER 18



Before their wounds had healed, the summer heat was upon them. Kallan thought to himself that no man’s life was so long, his experience so great, that he could watch and be ready for the summertime. If he had studied the star patterns more carefully, he would have realized that the time was near. But he had been too busy caring for his companions, dressing their wounds, gathering their food.

Kare still lay in her swoon. They watched her and fed her broth, spoonful by spoonful. She lay quietly, and they had to look and listen closely to feel her breath or hear her heartbeat.

“Nothing I can do,” Andiene said. “No power in me to do anything but kill.” Her voice was bitter, but resigned. “Is there anything that you can do?” she asked Kallan.

Kallan shook his head. “Wounds I can bandage, and bind with healing plants, but whatever wounded her is nothing I can touch. I think she is lost in a maze, and will have to find her own way out.”

He walked over to Ilbran’s side. “Now, here is where my skills lie,” he said, an unwise boast. “His skin is cooler; his wounds are clean.” He put his hand on the fisherman’s forehead, to check his fever. Ilbran opened his eyes at the touch, and smiled vaguely.

“Well, now are you glad I taught you swordwork?”

“What of Kare?”

Kallan hesitated.

“What of Kare?” Ilbran clutched at the other man’s sleeve, trying to drag himself up to a sitting position.

“Lie still, unless you want your wounds to open. You have already lost enough blood to kill two men.”

“What of Kare?” Ilbran’s voice rose frantically.

“She is alive, and well, but she lies some place we cannot reach her,” he said reluctantly.

“Let me see her!” Ilbran had the fever-hot impatience and unreasonableness about him.

Kallan carried the child over to his bed, and laid her down beside him. One of the fisherman’s arms was torn and bandaged until it was stiff as a tree-trunk.

With his other arm, he drew her in, so her body rested against his, lying quietly like a child’s doll, the top of her head tucked underneath his chin. He spoke her name again and again, “Kare … Kare … Kare … ” as though he had no strength or mind to think of any other words.

Kallan watched them for a while, then turned away and spoke to Andiene. The two of them went outside to harvest blaggorn, the last of the winter-year crop. They worked in silence, till Lenane joined them. “You should not be here,” Andiene said. “I cannot protect you both.”

Lenane shook her braid-crowned head and laughed. “No grievers run on the paths now. It will be many days before the stars weave lace fit for you to wear, my lady, when you rule in your city.”

The minstrel’s face was clear and free of any mockery, but Andiene looked at her gravely. “This is no time for such talk. I brought all this suffering on us by my pride. Do you remember?” Her voice was heavy with self-mockery. “‘I would spend the summer in the palace of Oreja, not in some villager’s cellar.’ You gave us wise words and I refused them.”

Lenane stripped blaggorn kernels from their stems with the skill of long practice. “If I had known then that you were a queen, Rejin born, I would have thought that the prize was worth the risk, also.”

When they returned to the safehold, they found Ilbran still holding Kare, and calling her name. His fever seemed higher, and when Kallan changed the bandages, the wounds were no better. The sandray would keep them from rotting, but would not force them to heal.

Though Kallan had boasted too soon about him, the other ones were recovering well. Lenane limped nimbly about, still giving him suspicious looks. He knew her kind, light-fingered and light-tongued, and he carried too much of a stench of the king’s law for her to ever trust him.

Syresh’s wounds were healing, though more slowly. “Lord Kallan,” he said, and was in awe. Kallan laughed to himself at the thought of that. He had become a legend in the city of Mareja, among the younger soldiers. He could take that admiration for what it was worth—next to nothing. But in this far-off land, he was glad that there was one of this group that saw him simply, whose vision was not colored by the memory of old wrongs.

There was a wary remoteness about Andiene. She asked his advice, and asked for his help, because he was the only one of her group who was strong and well, but she did not trust him. And why should she?

After their evening meal, he wrapped himself in his cloak and slept, to dream of a high plateau, the sea hidden by mist but crashing on the rocks below, the forest hemming him in on every side. Andiene stood by the cliff’s edge, proud and beautiful. He would have gone to her side, but the river was wide and deep and ran with blood; he could not cross. Then she looked at him and laughed, as the dragon raised his gray viper’s head from the meadow and breathed out flames, flames that clung and burned like the traitor’s death he had seen so often. In that fiery moment his body burned to ashes and was gone.

When he woke, still sick with the pain of that burning, he did not find the cool mists of the dream land, but air so heavy and hot that it could scarcely be breathed. It lay on the land like the lifeless breath from an opened oven. There was a stillness in the forest; no birds, no insects, not even one breath of wind to rustle the trees.

He walked to where Lenane slept, and shook her awake. “Lady, rise and see what has come upon us unaware.”

She looked at him with suspicious eyes, and closed her hands so the claws half-showed between her fingers. “Leave your claws in their wristlets, my lady,” Kallan said. “I woke you because you have lived in the forest the longest of us all. Summer is upon us.”

She rose then, and limped to the door of the safehold. One swift look told her all she needed to know. “Seven days more to travel, then the leaves fall and all paths are gone.”

“So few days?”

“Did you ask me, to question my reply? Look, the leaves are already gold. There is no life in them.”

Kallan thought of himself and his five comrades. Two strong, two weak, two sick and lying near to death. He turned to Lenane, though he knew what her answer would be. “Is this any fit place to shelter when true summer is upon us?”

She shook her head. “Some of us might live. Some would not. We cannot dig a place to hide in the hard ground, even if you were willing. There is no surety that the water will hold in the heat of the summer. Do you know this forest, to know of any villages that could shelter us?”

“No,” Kallan said. “What I am familiar with lies far from here. We have no time to search.” When Andiene woke, he spoke to her. “Can you charm the trees?”

“How do you mean?”

“Make them accept your hand on them, to break their boughs and tear their limbs.”

She shook her head. “No. I could spend a ten-score of years in wooing these ones to me, and still they would not grant such a wish. What do you need to do?”

He explained. “Ilbran and I traveled this road when we entered the forest. The safeholds are still bound to us, I think. We have enough time to leave, if we can find some way to carry him. But since your powers will not charm the trees, we will manage with what we can find.”

So the four of them, Syresh, Lenane, Andiene, and Kallan, searched the paths and gathered windfallen branches to make a sled, tying the wood together with vines. It was a crudely built thing that any artisan would have been ashamed to acknowledge, almost more trouble than it was worth as it jolted along the uneven ground.

They traveled slowly, the next day. Ilbran lay on the sled, still holding Kare, and Kallan dragged them along.

They reached the next safehold with great thankfulness. Carvarinelan guarded it, the hunter, whichever one of the wise ones he had been.

When Kallan and Syresh set the sled down in the safehold, Kare sighed and turned, as a sleeper does in a troubled dream. Her eyelashes quivered, barely noticeable.

They watched her in sudden hope, not daring to move or speak, but she lay fragile and quiet again. So they left her where she was, with Ilbran holding her tight, and calling her name as though it were the only word he knew.

Kallan was troubled. He is giving his strength to her. But when he tried to take the child away, Ilbran fought until the blood stained his bandages again, and would not let her go. It seemed better to let him have his way.

In the morning, Kare woke as though from a long and restful sleep, but her father was worse, and very near to death. Kallan tried to feed him soup or water, any kind of moisture in this summer weather. He turned his head away peevishly and tried to strike at the spoon. Anything that was forced into his mouth, he did not swallow, but merely let run out the sides of his mouth, or down his throat to his lungs, the last and gravest sign.

The fever raged in him. Like a disloyal servant, it had fought on his side till it saw the turning of the battle, then had deserted to the enemies’ banner. His hair and face were wet with cooling water, but no water would do him good, now.

Kallan stood up from beside him, and spoke to Andiene. “We cannot travel today,” he said, and she nodded. “Lenane, you gave us seven days, five days now. Is that still true?”

It was still true. They had enough time to escape. They would be able to travel more quickly the next day, with one less in their company. I was so proud of my healing skill. We could have waited another day. Kallan tried to turn his mind from regrets, and think of more practical things, of how they could dig a grave in the sunbaked earth.

That would be necessary. Lenane would agree, though the two city-trained ones would fear blasphemy. The worst terror comes when the hunters turn and show you a friend’s face in their company.

The grief was plain to be read on Andiene’s face. “He saved me. He sheltered me. I brought him and his family nothing but death and destruction, then and now.” She spoke as though she quoted something heard once and remembered bitterly. “No seed or root of healing in me … nor could seed grow … ”

“Where is the child?” Kallan asked. She had vanished from his side. He looked around the safehold stupidly, as though she could have hidden herself in its open emptiness. Then he saw her, a little figure out near the edge of the meadow, where the grass grew low as it neared the forest’s edge. He ran out of the safehold. Andiene followed him.

“I tell you, I will have no more foolish daringness among my people!”

“My lady, the grievers will not hunt now,” Kallan said, but still he was glad of the words and of her presence, although he saw that Kare had made no move to go into the forest. She quartered the ground, head down like a hound sniffing for a fresh trail. She stopped and gathered plants, leaves and seeds, kinds that Kallan had never noticed. Her hands were full of motley branches, springs of greenery. Perhaps three, but no more, were on the long lists of the lesser gifts.

“Kare?”

“Wait,” she said, and dropped to her knees to lean far under a bush and pull up a little hairy-leaved plant. Then she ran to Kallan.

“What do you have there?”

“Leaves. For people. I learned it … ” and she gave him a little sidelong look and was silent. Kallan understood that silence. In the time that they had traveled together, he had seen her learn, without one word being spoken by Ilbran, that it was not wise to speak of her mother.

“What are their names, those plants you have?”

She shook her head and muttered something; she did not know their names. When they returned, she stripped the leaves from her garnerings, and ground them to a pulp on the safehold step, for lack of a better mortar. At last, she scraped up the green paste, and stirred it into a bowl of cold water.

Kallan was willing enough to give it to her father—there was no medicine that would harm him now—but he had no hope. This that Kare did was child’s play, some imaginative pretense of wisdom, like boys playing with blaggorn-stem swords.

But he fed the brew to Ilbran, spoonful by spoonful. Sometimes the fisherman spat it out, and sometimes he choked and tried to cough, a sign that it had gone to his lungs. Sometimes his teeth clenched tight on the spoon, and more often than not, he fought, and the brew splashed on his clothes and on the floor.

As he took it, he seemed to become stronger. He babbled words, fragments of ideas. As for his talk of dragons, that was something that haunted them all. Kallan understood his raving talk of poison, of lindel trees, also. One night when Kare was asleep, and there was nothing to do but sit and listen to the song of the dark ones through the woods, he had finally drawn the story of Malesa from the fisherman. “What became of her mother?” he had asked. “I killed her,” had been the answer, and then he had told it all.

Other memories troubled Ilbran, as well. He clung to Kallan’s arm as a drowning man would clutch at the side of a boat. “I am blind. What more can I give you?”

“No need of anything.”

His fingers tightened convulsively. “Do not send your dead to the rocks with gold. They carry it off to their dens.”

“I understand; I understand,” Kallan said, though he did not understand.

Then the fisherman’s eyes opened, his face stricken with horror as he recognized the man bending over him. “I swear, we told you all we know,” he said in desperate earnestness. “She did not say where she would go!”

Kallan pulled free and stepped back out of the other man’s sight. The medicine had been given, all but the pasty dregs. He threw the wooden bowl viciously, to smash against the safehold wall and fall crack-grained to the floor. A shocking sound—but Ilbran lay unconscious again. Bright blood sprang through the bandages; his struggling had reopened the wounds on his legs.

So it was time to change the bandages, and try to draw them tight, and stop the bleeding. Afterwards, Kallan washed the old bandages out, and hung them on the thornfruit bushes to dry. Work is good if a man must not think.

Syresh and Andiene sat on the steps, speaking in low voices. Lenane had stayed in the safehold, telling stories to try to amuse Kare, who sat by her father’s side as though she were deaf and mute.

When Kallan stood in the doorway, he heard the minstrel saying, “And so, the mouse ran after the spider, and the grasskit ran after the mouse, and the courser ran after the grasskit, and the hunter ran after the courser, and the kingsman ran after the hunter.

“And all of a sudden, the spider turned and ran back toward the mouse … ” Kare’s voice joined in timidly. “And the spider and mouse both ran back toward the courser … ” Lenane smiled.

“And the spider and the mouse and the grasskit and the courser and the hunter all turned and ran back to where the kingsman stood, wondering what had happened.”

“Why did they run?” Kare asked.

“Why did they run? Because there was a rardissian standing in the path. With flaming red eyes, and teeth as sharp as daggers, and long, long, long black hair. And he said, ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Spiders for breakfast! Mice for breakfast! … ’”

Lenane paused invitingly, and Kare joined in again.

Andiene went over to Ilbran, and lay down beside him, holding him in her arms, speaking softly to him. He seemed to lie more quietly.

Kare and Lenane chanted together: “‘Hunters for breakfast! Kingsmen for breakfast!’ said the rardissian, and he smacked his lips.” Lenane made loud slurping noises, and Kare giggled.

“There’s one who would feed kingsmen to the rardissian for breakfast and supper too,” Kallan said to Syresh.

“She has her reasons for mistrusting us,” the other man said earnestly.

“I’m sure she does.”

Syresh looked puzzled at the note of mockery, but had no time to answer. “Come here,” Andiene said.

Kallan stepped to her side and stared in disbelief. Ilbran’s tunic was wringing wet; his skin was cool and damp. When Kallan offered him water, he opened his mouth at the touch of the cup on his lip and gulped the water down greedily.

“That child is wiser than you or I,” Andiene said.

Kallan looked at her. So you did nothing? He wanted to ask that, but he said nothing. He covered Ilbran with his cloak and laughed long and happily.

***

They stayed at the safehold one more day, though the sun grew brighter, and the leaves more golden. Ilbran woke, and talked to them, little sentences with long silences between them, as though he had fallen asleep.

“I dreamed of dragons,” he said once. “Wide wings … and gray … and a look in his eyes … as though the world would die in winter.”

Andiene came and knelt beside him. His face was filled with wonder and recognition. “So you lived … lived and grew strong.” He closed his eyes for a long time. She waited by his side. “I almost betrayed you,” he said, as though it were some confession that needed to be given.

“Never mind, never mind,” Andiene said.

“Have you ever seen her weep?” Kallan asked Syresh, softly.

“No, and never will. I think this is as close as she will ever come to that.”

The next day, they traveled again. Ilbran protested when he saw the sled he was to lie on. “I can walk, if you find me a crutch.”

“Proof enough that you’re still feverish,” Kallan said. “I know you could cripple your way along, and find your way out of the forest in a five-score of days, but we cannot afford to let you slow us down. Learn to obey orders. By the ones who led us to this land, two days ago I was planning how best to dig your grave!”

Ilbran shuddered, and said no more. But he did not worsen from their day’s journey as he had done before. He was alert and restless that evening. He held Kare in his arms, and talked to her. When she went to sleep, he asked Kallan, “What happened to her after the battle?”

“She lay unconscious, the same as before, but she woke, and maybe saved you with her herbs.”

“I saw you like that once,” Ilbran said to Andiene, and his face showed doubt and fear. Then he stared past her to Lenane. “My lady, I know you.”

She looked at him perplexed. Then her eyes widened. “Year’s Beginning in Mareja! The lout who would not dance with me! Forgive me—that is how it seemed to me.”

“I tried to be gentle. I had things I must do, that night.”

“And it was well for you that you tried to be gentle! If you had pushed me away, I might have clawed out your eyes.” She softened her harsh words with a smile.

“I will dance with you at next Festival, if you still wish it. My name is Ilbran Hammelfil, Karefile. Hammel Rotefil, Mareefile.” He gave his genealogy for three generations back, and then paused. Lenane took up the weaving where he had left off. When she was through, he began again, moving further back in time.

Syresh looked at them and scowled, a sour look indeed. Kallan was amused to see it. So that is the way things are? Well, you wear your caution-marks in your face already.

At last Lenane took up the thread once more. “Harl, Rulesfil, Sidenefile.”

“Harl of Rakkedland?” Ilbran asked.

“In the reign of Taulb Reji,” Lenane said triumphantly and leaned down to kiss him on the lips.

Kallan put a steadying hand on Syresh’s arm. “Calm yourself. They have only discovered that they are cousins.”

“Ten generations ago! How many drops of blood do they have in common?”

“Not many. Especially not since the grievers bled him. You must have never seen forestling meet forestling. His mother was of that kind and trained him in their ways. They will name off their ancestors for hours, and not rest content till they have found that they are kin.”

“So they learn their generations by heart, to make up for the laws of the land that they break?”

Kallan looked at him steadily, till the younger man looked away, abashed. “I lived among them when I was young, and I tell you that they break only the laws they must.”

Lenane and Ilbran laughed together like old friends reunited.

The next day, they were all stronger. For the first time, they did not have to carry Kare the whole day long. Syresh and Lenane walked more easily. Kallan made no mention of the summer’s heat, but it was a goad prodding all of them equally. Lenane still held to what she had said. They had three more days.

Another safehold welcomed them, and Kare gathered more herbs to put on her father’s wounds, gladly going back to gather more for Syresh and Lenane, when she was asked.

“It seems her mother taught her true as well as false,” Kallan said to Ilbran.

Her father nodded. “But look … ” He pointed through the entrance of the safehold, to where they could see her working close beside Andiene. “She follows her everywhere.”

“I know,” Kallan said lightly. “She has abandoned me and found a new love. More people in the world than she ever dreamed of, and she will want to know them all.”

“If that were it, I would be glad. But there is strong power in Andiene. You should know it, more than anyone.” Ilbran seemed anxious to talk, now that there was no one else to listen. “I am afraid that her magic, the scent of it, could draw Kare. I do not want her to be beguiled by it.”

Kallan looked out to the clearing, where the two of them picked blaggorn, holding out their tunics for baskets. He could not hear the words, but Kare laughed, and Andiene answered merrily. “I have never seen her—I have never seen either of them use power except when life was at stake. There is no harm in that. When you are stronger, you will worry less.”

“One more day, and I will walk, whether you give me leave or not,” Ilbran said. He thought for a while. “We needed golderlings to lick our wounds.” Seeing Kallan’s amazement, he told the story. “My back was healed as though it had never been torn, and the arrow wound, through my shoulder side to side, healed cleanly and gave me no pain.”

“I have never heard stories like that of the little golden ones, that they were gentle to mankind. You must tell them to our minstrel.”

Ilbran shook his head. “In some year to come, perhaps.”

“I have business of my own with our minstrel, then,” and Kallan walked across to where Lenane tended the fire.

“My lady, this is our last evening for a fire, I think.” She looked up at him and nodded, still mistrustful.

“Let me stir the kettle for a minute, while you see if you can find my signet ring. I lost it today. It fell from its string, and I did not pick it up at once. Though I do not wear it, I value it.”

Color rose up in her face. She walked swiftly away. Kallan did not turn to watch her delve into her pack, but stirred the kettle and whistled a tuneless melody.

Lenane returned quickly. “I found it.”

“Thank you.” He took the carved gold ring and reknotted it on the thong that hung around his neck. “Let me ask you something.” He caught her wrist and pulled her close to him. Her brown eyes were abashed, fearful, and defiant all at once. He was on his guard against her uncertain temper, but she did not try to use her claws. Across the room, Syresh watched them.

“What village were you born in?” he asked.

“Saverland, south of Oreja.”

“What did they teach you there? Do companions thieve from companions?”

“No.”

“Remember it well.” He released her wrist, and looked at her curiously. “Why did you leave your village?”

She spoke cautiously, trying to spy out any trap. “There was one who came. I followed him.”

“And he left you?”

“I left. After my child … ” Lenane’s eyes were shadowed with pain. She turned her back abruptly, and went back to her cooking.

The next day, they rose early and walked far, through avenues and archways of gold. Though the air was very still, a few yellow leaves floated down. They carried water in every bag and bottle that they had, and drank frequently. Kare ran at Andiene’s side, frolicking like a half-grown courser.

Syresh lagged behind, to speak to Kallan. “Do you know what her plans are?”

“She would not tell me. She does not trust me.”

The younger man’s face was eager and confident. “The land lies within her grasp. If she wants it, she can reach out and take it.”

“Are you ready to fight?”

“Ready? Ready and eager!”

“You alone, against Nahil’s armies?”

“Think of the songs that will be sung of such an undertaking. Our names would be written in the minstrel’s lore.”

“My name already is,” Kallan said, “but not for as good a reason. What of her magic? You have traveled with her. What have you seen of that?”

“She lived these last seven years in the land beyond the sea. Dragonsland, she called it, though she did not speak of what she saw there.” The younger man shivered, though the sun was golden hot on their back. “I have had strange dreams, such strange dreams.”

“Of dragons?”

“How did you guess?” Syresh asked.

“This whole company has, I think, though I would not dare to ask her what her dreams are. What were yours?”

“He was gray, lying on ridge-top like a crest of boulders. His bones were made of stone. He breathed out fire, and it changed to grievers, the cruel ones, running like wildfire in the summer, and this time you did not come to rescue us.”

“Think of it no more,” Kallan said. “Your wounds are but newly healed, and the memories still trouble your spirit. We were raised to face death by the sword, but these creatures of the forest are something different, that any man may fear without shame.”

But for all that he said, he was troubled, for the Gray One haunted his dreams also, as massive as the bones of the earth, with breath as fierce and sudden as lightning, and eyes as cold as a friendless death.

The sound of Andiene’s laughter drew his attention. Kare laughed in response to what she said. Truly, the child loved her well, and she in turn, was changing. Evening by evening, he could see the difference. Her laughter was easy and frequent. Little things provoked it.

It seemed to Kallan that though she had kept her queenly aura, she had more of the look of an earthly queen, one who would wed, and bear children, and die as all do. She seemed less dangerous.

Ilbran watched her almost constantly, a wary and doubtful look when she spoke to his daughter, a look of eagerness when she turned to him.

Syresh and Lenane walked together and sat close together that evening, doing their customary bickering in undertones. The night creatures sang outside, but all of them had grown accustomed to that song. It did not trouble their slumber.

They woke on the morning of the eighth day. Ilbran was on his feet and walking at last, heavily, and using a fallen branch for a cane. The leaves fell thick as rain. The wind blew from the east, and dust and death filled the air, choking them.

They passed one safehold and went on. Kare had tired and had to be carried, and a wound on Ilbran’s leg had opened and was bleeding, but Lenane urged them on, and Kallan did also. “When the trees stand bare, then no ways are safe,” he said.

It was late in the afternoon when they rounded a bend in the path, and waded knee-deep through drifts of russet and golden leaves to pass out into the open plains.