She wondered more than ever now what might be in the parchments, but even though the letter her mistress had written was now unsealed, she did not dream of reading it, and not only because she still had trouble with written Nabbanai. She wrapped the old letter around the new, then returned both to the bosom of her dress. “I will, my lord,” was all she said.
As the servant arrived to show her out, Matreu took her hand and kissed it—kissed it!—as though she were a highborn lady like her mistress. “Farewell, Jesa. You are one messenger who is always welcome in my house. And if you should ever change your mind about the thing we discussed . . .”
The servant, a thin, pale old man, was watching them. She thought she saw a little sneer of contempt curl his lip. “You are most kind, Lord Viscount,” she said loudly enough for him to hear. “Most kind and courteous to me. But my mistress needs me.”
“Of course. And I am glad she has you. Go in God’s grace, Jesa of the Wran.”
She was so taken by the memory of the viscount kissing her hand that she was halfway back down the Avenue of the Saints before she remembered where she was.
Twilight had ended and full night had fallen, but the wolves were still howling in the hills as Unver’s black horse breasted the Littlefeather and climbed dripping onto the far bank. Their cries rose and tangled, eerie as the wailing of wind spirits, before dying away as he spurred his horse toward the northeast.
For a moment, as he turned his back on the camp and the smoldering light of the burning wagon, Unver lifted his head as though he had heard someone calling his name. He reined up and swiveled in the saddle, searching the darkness. But when the wolves began to cry again, he shook his head and put his heels to Deofol’s ribs, leaping forward across the grassland.
Beyond the Littlefeather the land was mostly flat, an ocean of hummocky meadows broken only by stands of low, stunted trees and islands of tall grass, the shared pasture of the entire western Lake Thrithing. The moon was not quite full, but no clouds shadowed its face, and its light made it easy to see for long distances. Anyone who wished to follow him would have found it easy, although they would have needed to ride swiftly to keep up with Deofol. And because the moon was so bright and the land so flat, it was easy for Unver to see the low, dark shapes drifting down from the nearby hills after him, singly or in twos and threes. The wolves were following him.
Any man of the plains knew that a good horse could outrun even the fastest wolves for a time. Unver leaned close to his horse’s neck and let him gallop, no doubt hoping the wolves would lose interest. Deofol had a better sense of smell than Unver did; he didn’t need the spurs to let him know they were in danger.
At last, after an hour’s hard riding, Unver reined up on top of a small hillock. The wolves had not given up. In fact, they were close now, and Deofol was weary, his coat damp with sweat that gleamed in the strong moonlight, his breath making a fog that surrounded them. Unver had his curved sword in his hand, and his face was hard and empty, as if what was ahead of him was merely a transaction, to be weighed and added up by the gods, then life or death distributed to whoever earned them, without regard to any human desires.
The first wolf, a great gray beast with its hackles raised, charged up the slope and began to circle just a few paces below the horse. Deofol danced away from the gape-mouthed, growling beast, but other wolves followed until the hillock was surrounded by ghostlike shapes, swift and silvery in the moonlight, slipping through the bending grass like sharks around a foundering swimmer.
The largest wolf stopped on the slope just below Unver, well out of reach of his blade. Its hackles were up, the ears forward and tail lifted. The others crowded in behind the leader, less aggressive and less certain, yipping and growling among themselves. The wolf-chieftain looked around—its eyes caught the moonlight in a brief flare of flame-yellow—then it threw back its head and howled again. After a moment the other beasts joined in. The horse danced anxiously as the howls pierced the night, but Unver only stared. His face was still set in a stern mask, but his posture hinted at his confusion: this was not the way wolves behaved, especially not when they had surrounded their prey.
At last, the largest wolf ended his cry and gradually the voices of the rest faded as well. As if under a spell, Unver sat and stared at the great, gray chieftain for a long time, then slowly began to dismount. The wolves watched him. A few of the animals on the outskirts, less confident than their fellows, made little growling sounds of discomfort, but the rest merely watched Unver, eyes bright and tongues lolling.
At last Unver stood with both boots on the grassy hill, not a pace and a half from the biggest wolf. The two of them looked at each other. Deofol whinnied. Unver did not look at his mount, but raised his hand as if giving a blessing. The leader of the pack watched the hand go up, and then, as if a command had been given, the wolf lowered his own head, dipping his chest before lifting his muzzle toward Unver’s upraised fingers. Then, without any further sound, the great gray leader stood up, turned, and trotted away back down the hill. The rest of the pack followed him without a backward glance at the man and his horse, and very shortly they were running back in the direction from which they’d come, across the silvered grasses, until they melted at last into moving shadows and then were gone.
Unver, his face still expressionless, climbed back into his saddle, then rode down the slope and spurred away toward the north.
? ? ?
When Fremur came to himself, he realized he was kneeling in the wet grass beside his horse, on a slope not two hundred paces from where the wolves had surrounded Unver. He had been sure that Unver would die in the jaws of the wolves, and he had been about to die with him, without thought even for the clan he now ruled in place of his dead brother. Fremur remembered watching the beasts surround Unver, but he did not remember dismounting, as though holy lightning had leaped from the heavens and struck him witless. He had been following Unver since just outside the camp, on the other side of the Littlefeather, and though he had called out to him several times, Unver had not heard him.
Fremur did not know exactly what he had just seen, but he was trembling all over with it, exalted, mad with fear and excitement. Everything he had suspected, everything he had dreamed, was coming true. The man he had followed was no ordinary man—no ordinary chieftain, or even clan-thane.
Fremur struggled into his saddle and turned his horse back toward the camp of the Crane Clan. He could not help himself, and he spoke as he rode, saying the same thing over and over as though someone other than his horse and the bright, sliding moon were there to hear him.
“I have seen it,” he said. “I have seen with my own eyes that even the beasts of the grassland bow to him. I, Fremur, have seen the true Shan!”
46
River Man
As Tiyagar-month proceeded the days remained long, but Eolair and Morgan blew the horn only at dusk, so on this particular day an hour or more of daylight still remained when they finished riding and began to make camp. Bored, Morgan wandered off by himself, down to the water.
They had stopped somewhere near the border between Stanshire and Falshire, in a place where several streams that had their beginnings in the nearby Woodpecker Hills came down to join the Ymstrecca, the tributaries forming a marshy delta between the highlands and the wide river. Morgan walked for a short distance until he found a place out of sight of the camp, then waded out through the shallow water to a single tall stone standing a bit less than man-height above the slow-moving stream, surrounded by reeds and sawgrass. It looked a little like the Hayholt itself looming above the Kynslagh and Kynswood, and once he had reached the top and found a flat place to sit, Morgan turned to survey his new kingdom.
The only one I’ll likely ever get, he thought. If I believe in magic knucklebones, that is. He found a loose stone and tossed it as far as he could. It fell midstream with a muffled ploosh. Gone, he thought glumly. Just like everything else. Out in the sun for a while, then gone.
The river gurgled around the walls of his stone fortress. Somewhere in the nearby reeds a duck quacked, then the splashing grew louder for a moment and the reeds trembled. A moment later all was silence again. The waterfowl did not appear, nor did it make any more noises.
A pike, Morgan guessed. Sad for the duck. He had seen the long, wolfish swimmers many times in the castle moat, water dragons as big as he was, and sometimes older too—much older, if his grandfather knew what he was talking about. The king had told him once that the oldest pikefish lived two score years or more.
What kind of life would that be? he wondered. Forty years, as long as many men’s lives, down in that dark water . . .
“Morgan!”
His companions had come looking for him. He hunched down, hoping the reeds would shield him from whoever it was. It had been a strangely high-pitched voice, though.