The Gambler's Fortune

As the game of the White Raven is becoming ever more popular, I have included this amusing song of the Forest Folk

Meaeshale, Western Ensaimin, 12th of Aft-Spring

I appreciate this is as far as carrier’s coaches go, but do tell me we don’t have to walk all the way to Solura up to our ankles in dung?” Usara stopped to scrape a noisome lump from his boot. This early, with the cool of the night still lingering, the smell of the ordure was fortunately muted.

“No, don’t worry. This lot’s for fattening on summer grass hereabouts.” I was glad to be back on my own two feet again. Usara could grumble if he liked. I’d had more than enough of jouncing along a high road in the musty interior of some lord’s cast-off coach that was now reduced to wearing a regular rut between the little towns of western Ensaimin.

“Some will be pasturing on the edge of the wildwood.” Sorgrad had purchased a dark gray donkey the previous evening. He secured my stout leather bag to its harness with an air of satisfaction. “Let’s get ahead of any droves.”

I looked at the young stock penned with hurdles on all sides, lowing for their morning water and jostling for a taste of old hay and wormy turnips. I wouldn’t be traveling this road in the autumn, not with these droves half a year grown on good grazing, churning the road into morass as they headed back to Selerima for sale and slaughter. “Where’s ’Gren?’

Sorgrad shrugged as he settled Usara’s valise between two of his own. The donkey shuffled its neat black hooves on the hard-packed earth, grass pounded into oblivion by the countless white and russet cattle.

“There he is.” Usara pointed and I saw ’Gren coming out of the brick and flint inn looking mightily disgruntled, his own bag under one arm and one of Sorgrad’s on the other.

“Where did you get to last night?” I asked.

“Cattlemen are supposed to be good for a game of runes,” ’Gren grumbled, handing the baggage to Sorgrad and getting a reproachful look from the donkey.

“That’s when they’ve sold their stock and the coin’s wearing holes in their pockets,” Sorgrad reminded him. ‘This lot’s wealth is on the hoof.”

“You should have tried singing for your supper,” Frue appeared from somewhere, Zenela hanging on his arm. “We did well enough.” He patted the plump purse at his belt.

“Fancy throwing a few hands tonight?” ’Gren asked hopefully.

“You never know your luck,” grinned Frue. I noted Zenela looked less than pleased. Maybe she was just tired; she must have been up before dawn and the kitchen maids to heat her curling irons to make such a complicated arrangement of hair and ribbons.

Dusty-coated stockmen were busy around their kine, moving them with a slap on the rump or a shove to the shoulder, checking for injury, dull eyes or dry muzzles. Voices lifted above the lowing and joined the swelling noise of the little township setting about its morning business. Medeshale was a place of tidy houses built of cheerful ruddy brick beneath sturdy roofs of mountain slate. The scent of baking bread drifted from a bakehouse chimney reaching high above the rooftops. Children were scampering home with the morning’s loaf past women opening shutters and sweeping steps. A gang of men headed past us on their way to the clay pits and I heard one whistle a snatch of melody. It was the refrain to Frue’s song about the Elietimm. I smiled to myself. It had been a resounding success last night in the tap room and, better yet, Zenela had let slip a letter-press man had paid the minstrel a tidy sum for the right to print ha’penny sheets of the words to sell around the inns of Selerima. Frue was welcome to the coin, as long as word condemning the Elietimm was spread wide.

“Time’s wasting.” Frue looked on with amusement as Sorgrad settled his final bag onto the donkey. The animal laid its large furry ears back and startled a passing pony cart with indignant braying. Frue slung a leather strap, tied to a roll of stout blanket holding his few possessions, over his shoulder.

Zenela wore a gown more suited to taking the air in a formal garden than a day’s hard walking but at least her boots looked sturdy. I rocked on my heels and the shiny leather of my new footwear creaked. The coin for good fit and new socks had been well spent; this was no time to be crippled with blisters. Zenela clearly wanted to load her own bulky satchel on the donkey but Sorgrad made no offer, hardly surprising given the way she’d been patronizing both brothers. She was going to have to ask outright but I couldn’t see her doing that.

Shouts suggested a drove was about to set out.

“Come on,” I said hastily. “I don’t fancy picking a path through cow pats.”

Frue led the way, Zenela still hanging on his arm. ’Gren and I followed, Sorgrad and Usara behind, disputing the history of Col either side of the donkey’s head, something they’d been scoring points over for the last three days.

I’d given up trying to follow either argument. So had ’Gren. “You don’t fancy trying your chances there?” I nodded at Zenela’s fussily crimped head.

“After that song of hers?” ’Gren’s lip curled. “If she wants lovelorn suitors admiring her from afar, that’s her look-out, but I’m not playing her games.”

I chuckled. My mother had taught me the touch-me-not song, along with every other goodwife in the street keen to convince her daughter to save her maidenhood for a worthy suitor, but Zenela was the first I’d heard sing it with such obvious reference to herself. So she saw herself as the bloom whose perfume would only delight as long as it were left unplucked? I’d been a girl who’d never seen the point of keeping boys at arm’s length, finding them much more interesting close at hand.

“Where’s she from, anyway?” ’Gren was still looking at Zenela with an intensity that belied his disinterest.

“Her father is an innkeeper in Kadras,” I told him. “Frue said he’s been visiting their house for years. He knows her voice is her only hope of fortune, so he asked Frue to take her to Selerima in the hopes that someone of wealth or influence might hear her.”

“She’ll hardly find a wealthy patron warbling in the wild-wood,” ’Gren said critically.

“Nothing to do with us,” I shrugged.

On our way down the high road we passed farmwives and their maids coming to the pannier market in Medeshale’s paviored square. Some carried laden baskets; others had broad yokes across their shoulders swinging buckets stacked with covered crocks. Frue stopped to buy a round of cheese, fresh in its muslin. I did the same while ’Gren flirted with a pretty maid, her cheeks as round and freckled as the eggs she carried in a careful trug.

“Thanking you.” The goodwife nodded a farewell, a good start to the day’s coin in her purse. “Come on, Tila.”

’Gren swept Tila a bow and blew her a kiss that won him a giggle. I caught Zenela’s bafflement. Why were none of these men giving her the adoration she was accustomed to?

I moved to walk next to Frue. “The Serpent’s Tale was a fine inn, a good recommendation. Do you pass through Medeshale often?”

“From time to time.” Frue’s face hardened a touch. “A handful of years since, it was just a hamlet hacking at the edge of the wildwood. A generation ago, all the cattle marts were back down the road at Brakeswell.” He gestured at spring flowers dotting the grass, mostly yellow, here and there a soft blue or vibrant pink. The air was none too warm but the climbing sun dried the dew and warmed the flowers to lift their scents to the breeze. Spinneys here and there broke up the pasture, birds rustling and darting and their trills lightening the air. “When I was a boy this was all cob trees and red hazels. The nut harvest was quite something.” He gave me a sly glance. “Many a maiden went home with a full apron.”

Zenela hurried up to stake her claim on Frue’s arm again. “Will we be safe, traveling the road alone?”

“I’ll protect you, sweetheart.” I heard a hint of mockery in his tone.

I didn’t reckon we had much to worry about; any cover for would-be footpads was hacked down for a plow length either side of the highway. “There aren’t the lordless or landless men in these reaches of Ensaimin that make places like Dalasor or Gidesta so chancy.” Let Zenela chew on the fact I’d traveled five times the leagues she had.

“The Forest Folk take care of bandits using the wildwood as cover to prey on the road,” Frue added. “And we have common blood. Any Folk out to settle scores with the cattlemen won’t trouble us.”

“But what if—” Zenela tried to break in.

“Who takes it up if there’s a fight or a killing?” I rode over her words. “Lord Whatsisname at Brakeswell or the Solurans?”

“Things settle themselves.” Frue shrugged. “Cattlemen don’t welcome officialdom this side of the wildwood and the Solurans’ only concern is keeping the road open. Castle Pastamar sends out men once a season or so; they cut back the growth and mend the worst holes.”

Losing interest in the not very challenging game of ruffling Zenela’s feathers, I looked ahead as the road wound slowly toward the dense green line thickening the horizon of the undulating plain. Through an uneventful morning of steady walking, waving at the occasional farm cart or standing aside to let some urgent carriage rattle past, I gradually realized why the Great Forest is called simply that in Soluran, in Tormalin, in the tongue of the Folk and probably every other language. There are no other words for it. I’ve been in other wildernesses; they’ve had gullies, hills and rivers. If trees hem you in, you know they will give way soon enough. This forest hid any such hope beneath an impenetrable cloak of leaves. Ahead it blocked the view, an unsmiling barrier. Unbroken green marched away to the south, fading to a distant blur that promised unbroken verdant leagues beyond. North and west it ran up to distant mountains still capped with snows. Shading my eyes with my hand, I saw the brighter green of broad-leafed woods darken to somber shades of fir and pine, broad swathes of drab rock and ice stark contrast beyond.

“That’s the mountains,” Sorgrad stood at my side, face somber.

“They’re very big.” I couldn’t think what else to say. “How far do they go?”

“All the way from the eastern ocean to the wildlands west beyond Solura.” Sorgrad smiled but his eyes were unreadable. “And these are the low ranges. A few hundred leagues farther north there are the high peaks.”

“These look high enough and cold enough for me.” I shivered. “You’re right. It’s still winter up there.”

“Maewelin made the land and Misaen made us fit for it, that’s what they say,” Sorgrad murmured thoughtfully.

“All the world is made up of the same elements: air, earth, fire and water,” said Usara, his voice startling me. “It’s just that the arrangement differs.”

I imagine he was trying to be reassuring. Unfortunately he just sounded dismissive and Sorgrad scowled with unexpected affront.

’Gren came up behind us. “Are we stopping for lunch?”

We ate looking at the tiny trees holding the grasslands at bay. The road wound inexorably on through the afternoon, the one highway that cut through the secrets of the wild-wood.

I told myself not to be fanciful. My Forest blood was mere accident of birth. I knew my father’s name, that he was a minstrel and if Drianon had been paying attention the goddess would never have let Halcarion’s fancy tie such an unsuited couple together. I had left concerns over birth or parentage behind me in Vanam. A chill blew down from the hills toward evening as we entered the Forest proper. Tender leaves showed Maewelin’s black touch and the shadows under the trees were damp and chill with the memory of the Winter Hag’s slow step.

“Will it freeze tonight?” I asked Sorgrad, who had spent the day unusually silent. He’s always had the best weather sense I know.

He looked up at the sky. “Probably not but it’ll be cursed cold all the same. Do you reckon her ladyship is much used to sleeping outside an inn?” He coaxed his donkey through an uneven stretch where frost had broken up the surface to catch at wheels and hooves. “The Solurans had better send out a few wagonloads of gravel before midsummer if they want to send their wool clip east,” he commented.

“How come your boots aren’t thick with mud?” demanded ’Gren suddenly, staring at Usara’s feet.

The wizard looked slightly taken aback. “I’ve been using a cantrip.”

The rest of us just stared at him, each several fingers taller than usual by virtue of gluey clods stuck to our feet and sapping our strength with every step.

“I can dry out a path a little, if you all walk in my footsteps,” he offered hastily.

“We’ll manage, thanks all the same,” Sorgrad said curtly. I wondered how to go about reminding the wizard that we were singing a round song here, not out for solo admiration like Zenela.

Even with the trees hacked back to let in wind and sun, the ground was still sodden with the winter rain. We picked past heavy vehicles, mud clinging ever thicker to their wheel rims. None were stuck, which was a relief. I know we all owe Trimon a duty to help out and you never know when you’ll be the one being hauled out of a ditch, but wherever possible I find it best to keep myself to myself on the road. People had been spreading out onto the cleared land on either side of the highway in an effort to find a dry path, cutting a tangle of new tracks. Zenela and the donkey picked their way daintily through the morass with identical expressions of distaste. My scowl equaled theirs when we reached the first bridge.

To be precise, we reached the bridgekeeper’s hut and the little shrine to Trimon beside it where a tattered flag with the waterwheel device of Brakeswell fluttered above a wooden shield bearing a boar’s head emblem. The river swirled dark and turbid around a wreckage of wood and twisted iron, wedging a storm-felled poplar tree against the doughty stone pillars. The tree must have hit the bridge with the force of a battering ram and done just as much damage. The bridgekeeper was sitting outside his thick walled hut, sulking under the mossy thatch while a group of Solurans stared helplessly into the roiling water or berated their hapless leader. With angry gestures he turned to the bridgekeeper, who responded with spirit.

“You go tell Lord Pastiss. You risk the ford and may the Master of the Road help you! Whine to his lordship all you want, and while you’re at it ask him how he spent all these tolls he’s so keen to claim. If he’d sent timber and nails along with his tally-reeve back end of last year, you’d be getting over dry shod!” A short man with reddish hair, he reached for a handy-looking quarterstaff lying beneath his bench. The Soluran prudently backed off.

“We’d better not try any ford till this river drops a little, not tonight, not tomorrow,” Sorgrad said firmly.

Usara joined us and peered up at the sky skeptically. “I don’t think there’ll be rain tonight.”

“If only we had horses,” I sighed.

Sorgrad shook his head. “I wouldn’t risk a horse in that.”

“I’ll gauge the force of the water in the morning,” offered Usara. “If it keeps dry we should be able to cross without too much trouble.”

“I doubt it very much. Rain’s not the issue at this time of year,” Sorgrad told the wizard firmly. “It’s snowmelt.”

Usara looked at him and then around at the dark, leaf-strewn ground. “Any snow hereabouts is long gone.” I stifled a sigh at his unconscious arrogance. One thing wizards never seem to learn in Hadrumal is tact.

“And what about the snow in the mountains?” Sorgrad said, combative. Whatever had been galling him during the day, he’d found a vent for his resentment now. “This warm spell is just right for a thaw.”

“A thaw will be a gradual process in this weather.” Usara shook his head. “I can feel it in the air.”

“I’ve lived in these mountains and I’ve seen a snowfield disappear overnight,” retorted Sorgrad.

“Let’s claim a dry spot for a fire before too many other people turn up.” I spoke up before either could take further umbrage. “We’re not going to be the only ones stuck here for the night.”

“We want to be well back from the water,” insisted Sorgrad. “This way.” He dragged his donkey over to an uncomfortably exposed knoll.

“The sky is clear and we’ve had a run of fine days. I really don’t think there’s any likelihood of a storm,” protested Usara.

I followed Sorgrad reluctantly, for all that he’s always had the best weather sense I know. “We’ll be right in the teeth of the wind coming down the road here. It’ll be cursed cold.”

Usara was clearing dead wood from a smooth patch of turf in the lee of the rise. “There’s shelter from the breeze down here.”

“Which means that’s where frost will fall,” Sorgrad retorted.

“Which means we’ll be able to keep a fire in without it being fanned so fast we spend half the night gathering firewood.” Usara straightened up. His commendable determination to get on with everyone was clearly not proof against being contradicted on matters of element.

Sorgrad looked at him with contempt and stuck his donkey’s picket spike in the stony earth of the knoll. I looked for a spot somewhere midway between the pair with the least ruts and stones to cripple me in my sleep. I didn’t want to fall out with either of them, but both were raising their hackles over nothing. Hopefully a good night’s sleep would put them both in a better humor.

By the time the sun finally sank over the shoulder of the high ground to the north, a double handful of little fires were bright in the gloaming between us and the riverbank. Knots of disgruntled travelers hunched in cloaks and blankets, sharing the shelter of their vehicles and the warmth of their fires. Ours was spitting sparks, damp wood cracking in the fierce, uneven heat. I jumped as a sudden gust scattered a flurry of hot ash.

“I cannot understand what is making this fire so erratic.” Usara poked at the embers with an impatient stick, as if at some personal affront.

“Leave it alone,” growled Sorgrad, scowling into the flames. “You’re just making it worse.”

“ Gren passed me a split and rather scorched half of wood-fowl. “Here you are, young enough to be tender unhung.”

“And lost its chance to grow old enough to learn caution.” I smiled at him as I ate the crunchy skin. ’Gren’s always had the knack of taking a roosting bird. I prefer to pluck a different breed of pigeon and looked over at the other travelers who’d fetched up here. A couple of families had been on their once-a-generation trip to Selerima. Packmen were traveling in twos and threes, heading for the scattered villages of Pastamar to sell on trinkets they had bought at the fair. A few more solid merchants guarded loaded carts with roped canvas covers. None looked eager for a hand or so of runes.

“So, do you think we’ll be crossing tomorrow?” I asked the world in general.

“Quite probably,” said Usara confidently.

“Most unlikely,” stated Sorgrad in the same breath.

I exchanged a resigned look with ’Gren, who snorted around a mouthful of leg meat. He chewed and swallowed. “Water’s an element, isn’t it, Sandy? Can’t you make us a path across it or something?”

“Sorry,” Usara sighed. “Were I a Stone-Master with a nexus to support me, perhaps. The momentum—”

“You’re a mage?” interrupted Zenela, eyes wide. At least she spoke over Sorgrad’s mutter of contempt.

“Indeed,” Usara replied with mild amusement. “Of Hadrumal.”

Frue glanced briefly at me. “I thought you were a scholar.”

“That as well, an historian primarily,” nodded Usara. “Hence my interest in Livak’s song book.”

Frue seemed well enough satisfied with this explanation, Halcarion be thanked for the habitual tolerance of the Forest Folk.

The conversation flagged after that. Sorgrad was brooding and Usara’s air of injured dignity was getting wearing. I didn’t fancy being stuck here with the pair of them for too long. Where was the bridgekeeper? I looked toward the little shrine to Trimon. Someone had lit an offering fire in front of the weather-darkened statue of the god. The Master of the Roads hereabouts had a definite Forest cast to his wooden features, his harp a small affair tucked under one arm. A sudden flare of flame silhouetted two heads close in conversation.

“That pair have been looking our way a fair deal and I don’t think they’re just admiring the lass’s legs.” ’Gren moved to sit next to me.

“They’ve been taking the measure of everyone here.” I glanced idly around the camp. “Who are they traveling with?”

’Gren covered his nod by rubbing his hands over his face. “Those two over there, picketing their ponies.” Sturdy hill ponies, fast enough on the flat for short distances, small and nimble enough to dodge through trees and take rougher, steeper ground where lowland horses would balk and slip. Raiders’ beasts.

“Four lads, no goods to speak of but double-buckled saddlebags with shiny locks to them,” I commented speculatively. I saw one of them near the shrine glance at Sorgrad’s donkey, securely hobbled and dozing placidly with a mouthful of grain from its nosebag.

“The moons are both waxing to a double full,” ’Gren pointed out.

“Thieves’ season, isn’t that what they call it in Col?” I looked speculatively at him. “They’ll be setting a watch, if they’ve got a pennyweight of sense.”

“A guard can always be distracted,” said ’Gren with undeniable truth. “Zenela would be out of her blankets fast enough if a spider tried a fumble in her shift. Sorgrad can take care of her, that should cheer him up.”

“What’s the burr under his saddle, anyway?” I asked softly.

“Ask him yourself. I can’t say.” ’Gren shrugged. “He’ll get over it. Now, are we going to take them before they take us?”

“It would be the surest way to find out if they were honest men,” I allowed. I’d promised Ryshad to avoid thieving, unless out of direst necessity, but relieving dishonest men of ill-gotten gains could hardly be called stealing, could it? And it would certainly improve Sorgrad’s mood, even more so since Usara could be counted on to disapprove.

“A few trinkets to trade couldn’t hurt,” murmured ’Gren. “All Forest Folk have an eye for nice jewelry. They could be carrying just what we need to trade for a sing of your songs.”

I looked at him. “Let’s see if anyone’s wakeful enough to make difficulties come midnight. If so, we leave it.”

’Gren smiled, teeth white in the deepening gloom. “It’ll be easy as feeding cherries to a donkey.”

A chord from Frue’s lute ended our conversation. The minstrel had left the intermittent warmth of our sulky fire and his arrival prompted a gathering around the largest fire. Old favorites were sung with gusto and so was Frue’s new song, much to my satisfaction. Zenela sang, her rich voice spiraling up to the bright stars and sending every nightingale within earshot off to its roost in a huff.

The bridgekeeper started a move to settle by putting up his shutters. The wagoneers disappeared beneath the shelter of their carts, horses secure behind an improvised quickthorn stockade. The packmen talked for a while, wrapped in their cloaks, low-voiced over the embers, but by the time Halcarion’s Crown showed me midnight the camp was silent and still. The rushing chuckle of the river was the only sound beyond the occasional stir of a horse or some rustle in the underbrush.

I watched the arc of stars move slowly across the sky, the colorless light fading as the moons both followed their courses down behind the trees. Rolling over, I found myself face to face with ’Gren, his eyes lively with mischief. “Have they set themselves a watch?”

“Not last time I went for a piss,” he replied, barely audible. “They’re trusting to the fellow by the carts.”

“And he’s asleep?”

“Snoring like a cottager’s pig,” confirmed ’Gren. He unwrapped his blanket from ready-booted legs.

“Where’s Sorgrad?”

“Next to Zenela,” ’Gren smirked. “Ready to invite himself into her blankets if we need a distraction.”

“You’d better find something worthwhile,” I warned. “She’ll black his eye for him.”

“He said she shouldn’t show off the goods if she’s not selling,” ’Gren whispered.

A lesson better learned at Sorgrad’s hands than others’ I could think of. “Which way are you going around?”

“Yonder.” ’Gren passed his hand low over the ground between us. “You see any of them stirring, sit up and cough.”

I rolled over again and pillowed my head on my arm. The four we suspected were shapeless huddles of blankets in the darkness. Their ponies were picketed and dozing to one side, harness and the baggage sought stacked between the sleeping men. That wouldn’t deter ’Gren. Nothing would, not when a fancy took him.

Over by the carts, the merchants’ supposed guard rested motionless against a cartwheel, chin on his chest, still snoring. Faint rustles suggested no more than branches swaying on the night breeze or some foraging woodland animal.

Movement beside me had me nearly bite my lip through. Sorgrad sat bolt upright, face ashen in the moonlight. Usara opened perplexed eyes and sudden fear ran cold fingers down my backbone.

“The river—” Usara’s words were drowned by a roar shattering the stillness of the night. A brutal gust of bitter air surged through the camp, ominous with a stink of weed and water. Birds erupted from the trees, shrieking in alarm, and unseen shapes came crashing through the spring growth. Rabbits and weasels fled something more terrifying than any bigger beast. A spotted deer ignored the fires and unfamiliar scents of our campground and raced through, head back, tail high in alarm. As the hind vanished, the ground vibrated beneath us, as if something huge and untamed drummed frantically high on the hillside.

“Everyone, away from the river,” bellowed Usara but he took a pace toward the ruins of the bridge. Shouts and questions roused half the camp, scrambling free of their blankets, but others were scarcely registering the commotion as they raised sleepy heads. In a rumbling rush of sound and fury, a torrent crashed down on us, foaming up out of the riverbed. Water came surging through the trees, fallen timber slamming into beasts and people, tossing them helpless in the grip of the flood.

“Get behind me!” Usara yelled, turning to face the riot of water and debris racing toward us. I grabbed frantically for my bag with the precious book inside it. Sorgrad seized my arm with iron fingers, his other hand knotted in the donkey’s bridle. The animal’s rolling eyes were white-rimmed in terror so I flung a blanket over its head and held it close. I gritted my teeth and waited for the impact—but a shimmering wall of emerald light defied the flood.

It rose from the ground, seeming no more substantial than a curtain of shot silk the width of Usara’s outspread arms. It was strong enough to send the greedy torrent skittering sideways. Spray stung my face, needles of icy fire, but the killing rage of the water could not touch us. It could only fall away on either side, boiling with fury as we escaped its ravenous clutches, dirty froth blown on the wind like the spittle from a mad dog’s mouth.

Usara stood, feet braced and hands wide, effort twisting his face as a new ripple of amber fire ran from his fingers to the ground. The magic raced toward the river, a spreading tracery, shining through the muddy water racing ever higher crested with choking foam. Sorcery clawed at the banks on both sides, earth and grass cracking like ice trodden under a boot heel, great chunks carried away on the water. As the land fell away, the torrent was sucked inexorably back into the riverbed it had abandoned, leaving us gasping with the shock of such unexpected devastation.

For half a breath, maybe less, there was utter silence, then the frantic neighing of a horse broke the thrall and shouts came from all directions.

“Sorgren!” bellowed Sorgrad.

I couldn’t have heard an answer if one came. I was wrestling with the cursed donkey, shins and toes smarting with its kicks and stamping. I shook its halter furiously. “These are new boots, curse you!”

Soaking wet and hands trembling, Frue appeared from somewhere and helped me tie the recalcitrant beast to a sodden tree trunk.

“Zenela?” I demanded.

“I had her hand.” Unbidden tears welled in his eyes. “She was trying to run the wrong way, it all happened so fast, it all happened so fast—”

“Help us, for pity’s sake, help us!” a man roared, slipping in the mud ankle deep all around, vainly trying to brace himself to get a shoulder behind one wheel. The heavy wagons, dragged askew by the strength of the water, were shoved in a muddle like children’s toys. One was completely overturned, bogged down in muck and debris and defying all the efforts of the carters to move it. A man moved feebly in the mire beneath it, pinned across the thighs, hands pushing ineffectually at the weight as agony twisted his face.

Blue light coalesced around him and everyone froze, even the trapped man. “Get ready to drag him out!” All heads turned to see an azure nimbus surrounding the mage. “Get ready,” he repeated with a touch of anger. Everyone bent to add a hand instantly.

Usara set his jaw. “Now!”

Sapphire light flared and lifted the cart, no more than a handspan but that was enough. We pulled and the carter came free, biting his lip on a howl of pain, legs limp and broken. I shared a glance of pity with Sorgrad. That man would be lucky to walk again. “So the wizard is good for something,” he commented and without too keen an edge to his voice.

Usara was breathing heavily. “Start gathering wood, everyone who can!”

“It’s all wet,” protested someone weakly out of the gloom. “It’ll never burn, not—”

“That doesn’t matter.” Usara flung a scarlet gout of flame from one hand into a tangle of mud-covered brush. It burned as if he’d smashed a flagon of lamp oil on it. Awestruck, people gazed for a moment before throwing splintered branches and the wreckage of a carriage on top.

“He’s a good man for a bad day, your wizard,” ’Gren commented cheerily.

I rounded on him. “Saedrin’s stones, where did you get to? I thought you were drowned!”

“Not possible.” ’Gren winked at me. “Sheltya said I was born to be hanged.”

“Over here, over here!” Shouts of exultation and anguish came from the far margin of the forest. I ran with ’Gren, slipping on silty grass, stumbling on nameless debris. Soaked and filthy people were trying to pull apart a weed-wrapped mess of muddy cloth washed up against the broken body of some hapless horse. A child was pulled free, crying and bloodied, passed to its distraught mother. Two more coughing figures were being helped up by kindly hands, then led away vomiting and stumbling on shaking legs. Zenela was at the bottom of the heap, face pale and still, carried off by the flood like a drowned kitten.

“Get her to the fire.” Sorgrad pushed past me, digging Zenela’s limp body free of the clinging soil. The reluctant earth released her with a sucking noise of disappointment and muddy water oozed from her mouth and nose. We carried her to the fire and laid her gently down. I wondered if we should be laying her out.

“Usara!” yelled Frue, cradling Zenela’s unresponsive head in his arms.

“Where did you find her?” Usara knelt and put one ear to her mouth, light fingers on her neck to measure the beat of her blood. He grimaced and briskly ripped open her bodice, one impersonal hand on her breast above her heart. “Lay her flat.”

Using his other hand to tilt Zenela’s head back, Usara closed his eyes in concentration. Her skin was still stark white in the firelight. Usara lifted his hand and her chest rose slowly, following the wizard’s movement. Her bluish lips parted, a faint radiance showing air at the mage’s command forcing itself down her throat. The rest of us held our breath. Usara continued, moving the girl’s ribs for her, reminding her body how to breathe. A warm glow settled over her, coaxing the chill from her bones.

“Rub her hands, her legs.” The mage nodded abruptly at Sorgrad and me. I hurried to comply but Zenela’s wet fingers felt dead between my palms, cold and unresisting. Sorgrad chafed her feet, face emotionless. Usara looked up sharply to stare at him before fixing his attention on his task.

After half an eternity, Zenela coughed, her eyes rolling in her head.

“Keep her sitting up and wrap her warmly,” Usara told Frue.

Zenela coughed again and suddenly spewed great gouts of fetid water over both of them, racked with spasm after spasm. I moved hurriedly backward.

“Will she be all right?” I caught at Usara’s arm.

“Perhaps.” He looked grim. “Her lungs might fill with water again, it can happen after a drowning—” He shook his head. “Let’s hope she has a strong constitution.”

“What about Castle Pastamar? The Solurans have this aetheric lore in their healing.” Zenela hadn’t exactly endeared herself to me but I wasn’t about to risk Drianon’s disfavor by not doing my part to help her.

“We can’t get anyone to Pastamar unless we can get across this thrice-cursed river,” scowled Usara.

I gazed at the torrent. The sturdy pillars once carrying the last ambition of the Tormalin Empire were ragged stumps of broken masonry. The bridgekeeper’s hut was a roofless ruin of tumbled blocks, the man assuredly dead within it, and the little shrine to Trimon had been completely washed away.

“Will the water rise up again?” I heard a tremor out of my voice that demanded a comforting arm.

“It shouldn’t have risen in the first place!” Usara glared angrily upstream. “I simply don’t understand it. I took soundings from the river, I included the rate of snowmelt, the fact that the ground is so saturated—” He broke off, shaking his head. “It’s all so different out here—you’d be better served by a water mage.”

“You’re the only wizard we’ve got,” I said rather more forcefully than I intended.

“Yes, I suppose I am.” Usara’s narrow shoulders sagged a little. “I should certainly have worked a more effective defense—”

“That’s not what I meant,” I objected.

“Who died and got you elected king?” demanded ’Gren in the same breath, draping my own good cape over my shoulders, ruined, filthy but warm from the fire.

“Those of us with magical talents have a responsibility to use them for the greater good,” said Usara, faint hurt in his voice.

“So you stopped me and Sorgrad drowning like mice in a drain,” I said robustly. Drianon save me, these wizards did take themselves seriously.

“Come and get something warm to drink,” ’Gren urged us both.

Usara shook his head. “I need to see how the water’s affected the ford.” He rolled a weave of ocher light between his hands and stared at the water. “This simply should not have happened.” He stalked off, muttering to himself.

I found the wizard’s uncertainty profoundly disturbing and found a handy target for my irritation in ’Gren. “Where did you get to?”

He gave me a friendly hug. “See that outcrop? Up like a rat on a granary wall, that’s where!”

I looked at our raiders, three dispirited figures trying to pick apart a sodden tangle of harness. Two filthy and sweating ponies were hobbled alongside them.

“The flood washed their baggage clean away,” said ’Gren with spurious innocence.

I narrowed my eyes. “Where to?”

“A handy crevice up yonder,” he admitted.

“Did you get a chance to look inside?” I couldn’t help asking.

’Gren smiled sunnily. “Let’s just say that if they’re honest men, I’m the Elected of Col.”

“So the night’s not a total wash-out,” I joked feebly.

“You need a hot tisane,” said ’Gren critically.

“Of course,” I agreed, “and white bread to go with my roast dinner, and tell the maid not to call me too early in the morning.” I’ve always found it impossible to stay cross at him for long.

I allowed him to lead me back to the fire, where a couple of women were scolding the merchants into broaching their remaining supplies. No one had salvaged any juniper liquor so I had to settle for a cup of newly boiled water bitter with the tang of steeped herbs. It could have done with a spoonful of honey but this was hardly the time to complain about trivialities.

“How are you feeling?” I sat next to Zenela, who was propped up against what remained of Sorgrad’s valises.

“My chest hurts,” she said hoarsely. A massive bruise was purphng across her forehead and a deep graze under her chin would leave her marked for a long while. Her hands were scratched, her nails broken and her long hair was a tangled rat’s nest. Her chin quavered and tears blurred her eyes. In no mood to sit doing nothing but get miserable myself, I pulled a comb from my pocket and began teasing the snarls out of her hair. Frue sang a Forest song, the chorus a meaningless litany, pleasant enough to listen to and soothing. Zenela’s breathing came a little easier as we sat, people all around us seeing what could be salvaged, anxiously checking over their horses and mules, a chill in their spirits as well as their bones.

Frue struck up a new song and one name among the otherwise unknown Forest words caught my ear. “Is that a song about Viyenne?” A ridiculous notion teased me.

He nodded. “Do you know it?”

“I think I heard it, once, long ago.” More importantly, I’d recognized the name in one of the untranslated Forest songs in the book. I itched to get it out but dared not risk the precious thing in the midst of all this muck and damp. “Remind me of the tale.” Perhaps I’d remembered wrong.

Frue smiled. “Viyenne had left her lover, Seris, to travel for a season or so and learn new songs. She traveled for a while with Regere, the weaver of trees. He became besotted with her, was outraged when she decided to return to Seris. Regere had the willows knot themselves into a cage to keep Viyenne with him, but her tears dropped into the river and it rose up to sweep away the barriers and set her free.” Frue looked at the desolation all around us. “It seemed a timely tale.”

So I had remembered right. Uncertainty nagged at me, no longer so ridiculous. Looking over to the riverbank, I saw Usara still prowling, frowning and gesturing with his hands as he argued with himself. Sorgrad and ’Gren had joined a gang trying to get into the demolished hut. I got up and made a tisane, trying to ease the stiffness in my back and legs as I walked over to the wizard. “Drink this,” I ordered.

“I need to—” he protested.

“You need to take some time to gather your strength, or you’ll be no use to anyone,” I told him firmly.

He sighed and sipped at the steaming cup. “Thank you.”

“So are you satisfied this was just happenstance?” I was cold, damp and tired, and I wanted reassurance.

“Frankly, no.” Usara scowled at the waters rushing past in the pale light of a wanning sky. “Oh, perhaps, I really can’t say. There’s certainly something awry with the elements hereabouts but that could just be coincidence, a result of some peculiarity of the weather, an effect of the sudden warm spell.” He yawned. “With access to a good library, an apprentice or two to set researching and a week’s sleep I should be able to tell you one way or the other.” He managed a thin smile. “Theory and practice are proving rather more widely separated than I had imagined. I think I owe Sorgrad an apology.”

I wonder what odds I’d have got against a wizard ever admitting he’d been wrong?

“Is there any way the flood could have been summoned with Artifice?” I asked abruptly. I’d been trying to find a less obvious way of phrasing the question, but I was tired and Frue’s reminder of Viyenne’s story had me more nervous than I cared to be. In a city you can tell where the threats are coming from, out of doors or down clear paths, and when you’re up against other people you know you’re matching your speed and wit against theirs. Out here in the wilds, danger could come from any direction and with any manner of magic; it could be invisible, inaudible and biting your ear before you knew it.

Usara was looking perplexed. “I’ve no idea. What makes you say that?”

“One of the old songs, it talks about a flood coming out of nowhere. That might have been aetheric magic.” I realized it did sound unlikely, even as I said it.

Usara did me the courtesy of taking me seriously. “I could ask Planir to inquire of Guinalle, next time I bespeak him, but I think you’re just seeing Eldritch-men in the shadows.”

Perhaps, and perhaps the old tales about little blue-gray men using the darkness of chimney corners and attic rooms to travel instantly from place to place held their own hints of ancient aetheric magic. I rubbed a hand over my face and shivered in the predawn chill. This whole quest had seemed so straightforward when I’d come up with the notion over a flagon of wine by the fireside of a comfortable Tormalin tavern with Ryshad.

A shout went up from the ruins of the bridgekeeper’s hut and we looked over to see men springing aside as the remains of the chimneybreast fell with a sullen thud. Sorgrad and ’Gren came away, shaking their heads and I went to make them each a tisane.

“So that’s six dead for Poldrion’s ferry in all,” said Sorgrad bitterly.

“Maybe the Ferryman’ll give the bridgekeeper a free journey, on account of them being in the same trade,” ’Gren quipped, but his heart wasn’t in it.

I handed them each a drink, having nothing useful to say.

“Perhaps if I’d listened to you, we could have done more, got them away from the bank,” Usara said with honest regret.

Sorgrad looked sharply at him, face drawn with exhaustion. “There’s no saying they’d have believed us. Anyway, it’s a rune that could have rolled either way. Flash floods are like that, unexpected, catching everyone out.”

Deliberate noise at the edge of the trees brought heads up all around the campground. A handful of men stepped forward, dressed in leather and fur, two with short bows ready to hand, one with an array of throwing knives in a cross-belt. They were muscular, lean of face, all shorter than me, but just as redheaded. I wondered how long they’d been watching us.

The Wedge and Hammer Tavern, Grynth, 12th of Aft-Spring

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Keisyl’s voice was affectionate but Teiriol colored all the same as he looked up muzzily from his tankard. Keisyl stood by the table, where the younger man slouched over sticky spilled mead and an untouched bowl of pottage.

“No, I don’t think so.” Teiriol spoke with precise enunciation, blinking as he concentrated on emptying the last of the flagon into his cup. He rubbed an unsteady hand over his sweaty face, hair sticking up in unruly yellow spikes. “Mother will be fit to chew an iron bar and spit out tacks when we get home, so I’m going to make the most of this trip. Another, here!” He waved the empty jug at the potman, who looked at Keisyl, brows raised in unspoken question.

“Not until you’ve had something to eat.” Keisyl caught the eye of a serving maid. “Bread and meat here, if you please.” He handed her the congealed bowl.

Teiriol looked unpleasantly belligerent for a moment but the defiance in his eyes sank beneath a sudden rush of sentiment. “You know what’s best, don’t you, Keis? You look out for us all. I should listen to you, shouldn’t I? Not like Jeirran, drown him—”

“What about Jeirran?” Keisyl sat down and unobtrusively moved Teiriol’s drink to one side.

“Where is Jeirran?” Teiriol’s head lolled a little as he peered around the common room of the inn. “Where’s Eirys? We must look after her, Mother said—”

“Jeirran’s taken her to a dance in the market hall,” said Keisyl.

“ ’S’about flaming time he started being good to her,” Teiriol scowled. “Dunno what Mother’s going to say. Eirys got no prize insisting on that one, for all his fancy promises.” He looked perplexed at the coarse brown bread and succulent mutton that appeared in front of him.

“Eat up, Teiro,” said Keisyl, tone casual but eyes intent. “Jeirran never did tell me exactly what happened when you sold those skins.” He ate neatly with knife and fingers. “You went off to find a cockfight or something? Don’t worry, I shan’t tell Mother.”

Teiriol’s curse was stifled by his mouthful and he choked. “Do you know what he was paid?” he demanded when he could speak again, red-faced and not just from coughing. “No more than twice what we’d have got from Degran. After all his promises!”

“Didn’t he bargain hard enough?” Grim satisfaction lurked beneath Keisyl’s brows.

Faint bemusement drifted over Teiriol’s face. “Didn’t get a chance to bargain. That Huckus, he says that’s the price and we’re to take it or he’ll have that whore laying information with the Watch it was us kicking the shit out of their mates.” He sounded puzzled and aggrieved.

“Jeirran got you into a fight with some lowlanders?” Keisyl’s knuckles shone white for an instant as he gripped the hilt of his knife.

“He said it was part of doing business with that Huckus.” Teiriol wouldn’t meet his brother’s eye and shuffled a sturdy boot in the herb-strewn rushes on the floor. “It was a fix, all right,” he continued indignantly. “That whore, she was working for that Huckus, I’ll wager any money. Must have been looking out for those Watchmen, unlaced to her waist and legs as bare as a skinned rabbit—”

Keisyl shook his head. “Forget the whore, she doesn’t matter. Keep your voice down, we don’t want everyone knowing our business. You’re telling me Jeirran got gulled?”

Teiriol looked around vaguely for his drink. “That Huckus, he turns up with a bag of coin and five bully boys wide as a barn door with studded boots and clubs to match. Jeirran doesn’t even count the coin before he’s arguing but these two, they’re already taking the hides off on a handcart. Jeirran starts making a noise and Huckus threatens to call the Watch then and there.” His tongue stumbled under the double burden of outrage and alcohol. “All this way for no more than we’d have got if we’d sold the hides at Bytarne, like you’d said. That’s no return for Mother spending both halves of winter curing and caring for them. What’s Eirys thinking of—”

“Enough,” Keisyl said firmly. The door opened to admit a cheerful group of revelers followed by faint chimes from the timepiece in the tower of the market hall. The men were proud in new hats, feathers still crisp and colorful. Their ladies had furbished up their workaday woolen gowns of blue and madder with new silk ribbons, azure and rose trimming bodices and sleeves to give a festive air. One dark-haired girl was carefully teasing out the long fringe on a fine shawl of soft goat hair, embroidered with mountain flowers.

“Didn’t you buy one of those for Theilyn?” Teiriol peered over with difficulty.

Keisyl looked at him with a measuring eye. “More mead, a full flagon,” he called to the potman, who shrugged and turned to the barrel resting on the counter behind him. Keisyl took a scant half-cupful for himself, but filled Teiriol’s tankard to the brim. Grinning broadly, Teiriol nearly emptied it before he took a breath. He frowned, an ominous gray pallor supplanting his previous pinkness.

“I don’t feel so well.” He swallowed uneasily. Taking another sip, he put the tankard down hastily. “I think I could do with some air.” A fresh outbreak of sweat beaded his forehead.

“Come on.” Keisyl got his arm under his brother’s and they headed for the door, the potman watching them anxiously. Halfway there, Teiriol’s legs gave way and he folded his arms over his stomach, jaw working in distress.

“Move!” Keisyl got an arm around Teiriol’s waist and half dragged, half carried him out. He let Teiriol fall to all fours in the narrow, uncobbled street. Teiriol vomited convulsively, spewing up meat, mead and bread in a revolting mess. Keisyl’s face twisted in distaste, but when the wracking nausea abated he raised Teiriol up to walk him slowly to the town well with gentle encouragement. “Just sit there a moment, my lad.”

Teiriol’s knees obediently buckled to drop him on the cold stone steps. Keisyl briskly wound up the pail and dashed the chilly water over Teiriol’s head, repeating the process over Teiriol’s incoherent protests before using his kerchief to wipe the droplets from his brother’s shivering face.

“I’m soaked,” protested Teiriol, teeth chattering, ashen in the uncaring light of the moons high above.

“Drink, just a little.”

Teiriol cupped some water in his shaking hands, looking mournful now, chin wavering.

“You want to drink till you puke, that’s your right and I won’t tell Mother,” Keisyl said, “but you’re not sharing a bed with me smelling like something the dog sicked up.”

Teiriol simply sat there, wet and woebegone.

“You need some sleep, my lad,” said Keisyl affectionately.

“Better in the morning,” mumbled Teiriol, still pale but looking less pinched around the mouth.

Keisyl didn’t bother dashing that forlorn hope. He helped Teiriol along the street to the low-roofed hostel where they were staying.

The grim-faced doorkeeper opened to his knock carrying a smoky tallow candle. “Drunk is he? I’ll not have him puking in my bed—he can sleep it off with the dogs.”

Keisyl had his hands full supporting Teiriol who was fading fast. “We’ve hired the room and we’ll be sleeping in it,” he snapped.

“And what about them as comes next? There’s more than you heading back to the hills after festival!” the doorkeeper complained.

Keisyl ignored him, propping Teiriol against the wall as he unlatched the door to their narrow room. “Come on.”

Teiriol lurched forward and collapsed onto the rough pallet, groaning as Keisyl yanked off his boots. Cursing under his breath Keisyl stripped off Teiriol’s wet cloak and the shirt beneath it. “Little fool.” Loosening his collar and unlacing his breeches, Keisyl rolled his now inert brother onto his chest, wedging a rolled-up blanket beside him and covering him with another. “Right, now for you, Jeirran.” The menace in his face silenced the old woman sulking with her sewing by the door.

The market hall was bright with candles within and braziers outside. Groups of men taking a rest from the dancing shared chewing leaf and one was roasting a few nuts in a skillet set on the glowing coals.

“Evening,” one nodded to Keisyl, licking his fingers as he peeled a hot kernel. Keisyl acknowledged the greeting with a curt nod, but he was already looking in through the open door, searching out Jeirran and Eirys. There was a good sprinkling of fair heads in the company and plenty darker with the shorter, stocky build of upland blood.

Eirys was in a set forming for a round dance, eyes bright with enjoyment and a pretty blush on her cheekbones. Her dress of embroidered linen was the only one of Mountain style in the wide room but Eirys seemed entirely content to be noticed for it. Respectably high-necked and long-sleeved, it was cut to her curves to flatter her and drew irritated glares from a couple of local beauties affecting boldness in low cut and sleeveless gowns.

Eirys would still have drawn all eyes, had all the other girls been stripped naked, Keisyl thought with a private smile, even if she hadn’t a jewel on her. Eirys was wearing a necklace of interlaced gold chains, rings on each finger catching the light with their deep engraving and a filigree net with crystal drops glittering against her blond braids. The jewelry Jeirran had given her in earnest of his pledge to wed her made a good show, Keisyl reflected. He’d given her precious little since though.

Around the edge of the dance floor the matrons of the town were exchanging gossip over tisanes and well-watered wine. One glanced curiously at Keisyl as he made his way past them. “Who is that young man?”

Her companion peered short-sightedly after him but shook her head. “Just some uplander passing through.” The women returned to topics of more compelling interest.

Keisyl stood for a moment, looking at the four musicians sitting by the shrine to Larasion. The statue of the goddess was decked with a spray of pink and white blossom and looked with blank marble eyes at the red-faced man puffing out his cheeks as he led the melody on a double-reeded flute. His companions, brothers by all appearances, filled out the tune with a bowed lyre and a dulcimer while a double-headed drum carried the beat.

“Shouldn’t you be dancing with your wife?” Keisyl took a chair without ceremony. Jeirran was sitting by a screen set to baffle the draft from a rear door, eyes unfocused as he sat deep in thought.

“What?” Whatever Jeirran was thinking, it was putting a smile on his face. Already one of the most handsome men in the room, he was attracting a share of speculative glances from the girls currently sitting hoping vainly for a partner.

“I said, shouldn’t you be dancing with your wife?” Keisyl’s emphasis was little short of a challenge.

Jeirran looked at Eirys with proprietorial satisfaction. “No, she’s safe enough on the dance floor and she’s hardly likely to go outside with one of these muddy-boots. Can you see any of them thinking he could risk it without me breaking his face? I’m joking!” he added hastily, seeing Keisyl’s unsmiling face. “What are you doing here? You don’t like capering like a spring-giddy goat any more than me.” He smiled fondly at Eirys as the girls whirled past in a quick exchange of partners. “You don’t have to put up with her nagging like a hooded crow.”

“Did you give Teiriol the coin to get puking drunk?” Keisyl looked hard at Jeirran who shrugged.

“He’s a man, he can do what he likes.”

“He’s not of full age for another five years, as you cursed well know. You’re married to his sister, you owe the duty of care that I do,” stated Keisyl.

Jeirran looked around with the first stirring of concern. “What’s he done?”

Keisyl’s eyes were midnight blue in the shadowed corner. “He’s been telling me about the wonderful deal you struck in Selerima, for a start.”

“Deal? It was little more than robbery,” snorted Jeirran. “A nest of thieves, like all the lowlanders, that’s what Teiriol led me into. You’re right, he’s nowhere near full grown, not yet awhile.”

Keisyl scowled. “Teiriol said you suggested looking for a trade around the back gates.”

“It was Teir who wanted to see a cockfight.”

Jeirran’s confidence dared Keisyl to deny this. “He says you got a piss-poor price,” insisted Keisyl grimly.

Jeirran’s expression turned belligerent. “I got the best price I could and I’ll knock down any man saying otherwise.” He ran an unconscious hand over his beard. “Anyway, what’s done is done. Dogs barking at a moon don’t stop it setting.”

“You can quote fireside wisdom at me? After all your promises to make us rich are dust and ashes? Teiriol said it was little more than robbery!” Keisyl retorted. “We can be cheated by lowlanders in the valley bottom back home, thanks all the same. And you’ve got more losses than either of us to make up! Where’s the gold coming from to replace your patrimony? What’s Eirys going to find under her hearthstone come Solstice?” He kept his voice low beneath the jaunty music but the anger in his unintelligible words was still attracting curious glances.

Jeirran folded his arms over his burly chest with an air of satisfaction. “Eirys will be thanking me for more than tainted lowlander coin in her coffers by Solstice. We can forget that stinking Harquas and his gutter curs.” He drew back his feet as a couple of dancers strayed out of their set.

“What are you talking about?” Keisyl’s irritation was replaced by plain bafflement.

“Would you like to find a means to put these lowlanders in their place once and for all? Don’t we need a way to regain what’s rightfully ours and be cursed to anyone who tries to do us down again?” Jeirran stretched his arms over his head and smiled broadly at Keisyl as he folded them again.

“You’re deeper in your cups than Teiriol,” said Keisyl crisply. He reached for the green glass goblet by Jeirran’s hand and sniffed at its dregs.

“I’m not drunk on almond sweet-cup,” sneered Jeirran.

Keisyl gave him a steady look. “Then explain yourself.”

Jeirran’s desire to share his discovery overcame the temptation to hug it to himself for a while longer. “See those musicians over there; they’re just back from Selerima.”

“So?” Keisyl barely spared a glance for the players lustily raising a new tune.

“So, they’ve got a new song. The drummer was singing it earlier.”

Keisyl sighed. “Either tell me straight or I’m going back to look after Teiriol.”

Jeirran’s good humor faded a little. “They had a ballad, about Tormalin men sailing across the ocean to unknown lands, finding a powerful race of men. Powerful in magic, Keis, using it to cross the seas and attack Tormalins in their own homeland.”

Keisyl shrugged. “The lowlanders drove their wizards into the sea, didn’t they? So they’ve come back to make a fight of it.”

Jeirran looked smug. “According to the singer, these folk are called Elietimm.”

“Should I know that name?” Keisyl knotted his brows. “It sounds familiar—”

“Alyatimm?” suggested Jeirran.

Keisyl’s mouth opened in sudden surprise. “But that’s only a fireside tale for winter nights.”

“What if it isn’t?” Jeirran demanded. “What if these folk, wherever they are, are born of that blood?”

The two men fell silent as the music swelled and the dancers swirled past them.

“Do you think they could be?” Keisyl pondered this startling question, antagonism forgotten.

“This ballad speaks of fair-haired men,” Jeirran told him.

“That just makes us the villains of the piece again,” Keisyl said slowly. “That’s no news. Half the lowlanders’ tales have yellow-headed thieves raiding Grandma’s chicken run.”

“The peasants hereabouts, true enough,” nodded Jeirran, “but why would a song from down and east say that? The ballads we heard in Selerima mostly warned of shoeless barbarians raiding up from the far south.”

Keisyl spread his hands. “So that’s your answer, isn’t it? They’re islanders, aren’t they, the barbarians from the Southern Seas?”

“And dark of skin and eye,” Jeirran pointed out. “This tale can’t be about them.”

Keisyl chewed his lip, puzzled. “But do you think they could really be Alyatimm?”

“The song spoke of Men of the Ice,” Jeirran told him. “That can’t be coincidence, surely?”

“No,” breathed Keisyl. “I don’t suppose it can.” He looked at Jeirran. “What should it mean to us, beyond making history out of a tale? And why would we want to find Alyatimm anyway? They were exiled because their leader tried to make himself sole ruler of all the sokes!”

“These people have magic, Keis,” Jeirran said, eyes intense. “They have magic enough to cross the ocean, to travel unseen among the lowlanders. If that song’s any guide, the lowlanders are running scared of these Elietimm. Think about it, Keisyl. If these are Alyatimm, then this must be true magic, not perversions of lowland wizards. Real power, rooted in the mountains of old and not locked away in Solstice secrets by Sheltya. If these are Alyatimm, then we have common blood, no matter if it’s countless generations divided. What if we could claim kinship and help?

“Think on tales you’ve heard around the hearth of a sunless Solstice. What if the Wyrm of Ceider could be summoned up again? That would get lowlanders out of our mines faster than firedamp! What if the wraiths of Morn could be sent down the sokes? Let them chase the stupid cows clean over the nearest crag! We could maze the feet of the thieves setting traps in our woods couldn’t we? Kell the Weaver did it!”

“But those are just stories, Jeirran,” objected Keisyl, but his voice was uncertain.

“Are they?” Jeirran countered. “So are the Alyatimm, or so we’ve always been told, but how else would lowlanders know of them if there weren’t some truth in it?”

Keisyl was confused. “It’s just a song, Jeirran, just some balladeer making up a story to give the lowlanders a thrill. Tell me, what happens to these Elietimm?” He stressed the word. “I’ll wager my best shoe buckles they come to grief,” he snorted, looking with hostility at the unheeding dancers weaving a complicated figure down the length of the hall.

“Not so you’d notice,” replied Jeirran with satisfaction. “These Tormalin men went to these islands, so the song ran, to steal back a hostage—”

Keisyl drew a sharp breath.

“—that’s right, Keis. What lowlanders would understand the folly of that?” Jeirran pressed on. “They went to steal back the hostage, so naturally he was executed. The others were hunted as proved vermin, stole a boat and somehow managed not to drown, were washed up home. That’s as far as their victory goes and piss poor I’d call it.”

Keisyl shook his head. “It’s just a song, Jeirran. It’s some tale of adventure stitched together out of half-remembered scraps of saga. Some easterner who married out has passed on the legend to some lowlander wife and their half-breed children. That’s all it can be.”

“What legend?” demanded Jeirran stubbornly. “You tell me what saga this is cobbled up from. How could easterners come up with a tale like this, when they have fallen so far from the old ways? They can scarcely recite three degrees of their kindred!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Keisyl conceded. “All right, but what good does it do us, even if there’s some truth at the bottom of it? These people might have the power to raise Varangel and his ice demons, but it’s half a year’s journey to the ocean and you’re saying they’re on the far side of that!”

Jeirran leaned forward to speak softly. “If they have true magic, Sheltya should be able to reach them.”

Keisyl started as if he’d been stabbed in the leg. “You’re not serious!”

“Why not?” Jeirran demanded, face bold. “Don’t you think Sheltya should be told?”

“If this song is doing the rounds, they’ll get to hear of it soon enough and they don’t need to hear it from me,” said Keisyl with consternation. “I don’t want that kind of trouble.”

“I want that kind of power, if these Alyatimm have true magic and are willing to share it,” Jeirran said grimly. “Let Sheltya cling to their wisdom and get driven back farther every year. I want to walk Eirys’ lands without putting a foot in some thief’s spring-trap. I want to sell the metals I win from the earth by the sweat of my back for a fair price, not to be undercut by some lowlander whose mines run with the blood of slaves, tainting the earth with their misery. I want to move from soke to soke in safety, claiming shelter when I need it, not finding doors barred against lowlander robbers who dishonor the truce of the road so often it’s worthless.”

“You’ve no way of knowing these people have true magic, even if they exist,” protested Keisyl, but his words lacked their earlier force.

“Don’t you want to find out?” challenged Jeirran.

“Perhaps, now you’ve set your maggot in my brain with your fancies,” Keisyl sighed. “But not at the price of getting myself shunned by Sheltya!”

“I think I know one we can trust,” said Jeirran slowly. “My sister.”

“You have no sister,” Keisyl looked sharply at him. “She’s Sheltya now. Her blood is theirs and you have no claim on it.”

Jeirran ran a pensive finger through his beard. “I think I could persuade Aritane to keep this to herself.”

“She better had, else you’re neck deep in trouble,” said Keisyl dubiously. “What do you think she will say?”

“I have no idea,” admitted Jeirran. “I’ll sound her out, see if she’s willing to listen to me.”

“You keep us out of it,” Keisyl insisted. “If you do end up shunned, at least we’ll be able to take care of Eirys.”

“Eirys is a large part of why I want to do this.” Jeirran’s eyes burned. “I want to give her everything her little head fancies, I want to give her daughters standing enough to claim back every right on and under the land that has fallen away to others of their blood. I want sons with a patrimony to catch every mother’s eye, to link our blood, yours and mine, to every soke west of the Gap, so we never have to deal with lowlanders again unless we choose to.”

His voice turned calculating. “And of course, you and Teir will be the first to benefit. Given your father died before he could leave you a respectable coffer, no one will quibble if Eirys chooses to endow you. You could be taking a confident stand at Solstice, not like last time. I heard you claim not to be seeking a bride just yet, hoping all the while some girl with a decent holding would fall for your charms and insist on having you.”

“You managed it,” Keisyl replied cynically. The dance music concluded on a triumphant chord.

“Doesn’t Teir deserve a chance at a decent match?” Jeirran ignored the jibe, glancing at Eirys acknowledging the bow of her erstwhile partner.

“If you want to pursue this, I won’t stop you,” decided Keisyl. “I won’t tell anyone and neither must you, especially not Eirys. If anything comes of it, good or bad, that’ll be time enough to explain.”

“Fair enough,” Jeirran offered his hand and Keisyl shook it briefly. “As soon as we’re home, I’ll send word to my sister as was.”

“She won’t come,” predicted Keisyl.

“We’ll see,” said Jeirran. Eirys walked toward them. “My love, you shine like a swan among these wood pigeons.” He rose to brush her cheek with a kiss.

Eirys curtseyed as she giggled. “Will you dance with me now?”

“Of course, my dearest.” Jeirran offered her his arm. “To remind these lowlanders that you are my wife, before they all lose their hearts to your beauty.”

Keisyl watched them join a circle with a faintly mocking smile. His face turned somber for a moment but then he rubbed his hands together in a decisive burst of energy and stood up. Crossing the room, he bowed low before one of the provocatively dressed girls, looking up and down her brunette prettiness with admiration tinged with insolence. “May I have the pleasure of your company in this dance?”

The girl was a little disconcerted but, seeing the envy of her more modestly shawled and petticoated friends, could not refuse. “You are welcome, sir,” she said boldly.

The musicians struck up a lively tune and Keisyl swung the girl into the dance, broad hand firm on her narrow waist.

Erdig’s Bridge, the Great West Road, 13th of Aft-Spring

“Do you need assistance?” The man with the throwing knives stepped forward. The copper in his hair was fading to a middling brown and, allowing for the weathering of his skin, I guessed him about Ryshad’s age, maybe a handful of years older than myself.

Frue spoke briefly in the Forest tongue, which sent a frisson running through the other travelers, faces a mix of hope and apprehension.

The knifeman spoke briefly to his companions. Two of them vanished back under the trees but the other two went to assess the state of the river. “What’s the plan, Frue?” I smiled politely at the knife man, who gave me a heartening grin.

“They’ll help people cross the river.” He stood, brushing ineffectually at the mud dried on his breeches.

“What about Zenela?” I asked. “Do we take her to Castle Pastamar or back to Medeshale?”

Frue nodded toward the tree line. A Forest woman of about my own age and with a deerskin bag slung across her body was approaching with one of the bowmen. She knelt beside the man with the broken legs. Uncovering the wounds with careful hands, her expression remained noncommittal despite the mess of torn flesh revealed. She took from her bag a small pottery jar, stoppered and sealed with wax. Cracking the seal with a thumbnail, she began spreading something on a length of clean linen, nodding as the injured man talked to her.

“What do we do now?” Sorgrad was poking wood into the embers of our fire and setting the kettle to boil on its tripod while ’Gren rummaged in an unregarded pack, unearthing a muslin-wrapped ham. He sliced me a chunk and I chewed hungrily, despite the musty taint of river water. Sorgrad unearthed his personal tisane case from the depths of a valise and checked the little jars were still tightly sealed against air and damp. “Should we offer to help? We might find out what’s going on.”

“Let’s see how the runes roll.” I watched the rest of the camp gaping at the visitors in our midst. A couple of the packmen were inclined to be disagreeable but the wagoneers and the families welcomed the newcomers readily enough. A matron with a manner as robust as her forearms soon had one of the Forest lads laying aside his bow to fetch her firewood. The woman with the herbs went to talk to her and the matron dispatched a lass to poultice the injured man’s wounds. The other travelers soon moved closer to the reassurance of this brisk organization.

The water was scarcely hot enough for Sorgrad to make a tisane when enough Forest Folk appeared to have me wondering just how close they had been. At least, I assumed they were Forest Folk; they didn’t share any startling resemblance, certainly none of the stamp of common blood marking Sorgrad and ’Gren. They were all men and women grown, no children or elders, who worked together with an ease suggesting long familiarity. One woman with an impressive array of rings and earrings, chains of silver and gold close around her neck, unwound a thin rope from around her waist.

“That’s not stout enough to hold anything,” ’Gren observed dubiously, assessing the rope with an expert eye.

“Look over there,” nodded Sorgrad, pouring boiling water on herbs in a twist of muslin. Three others had unslung ropes and were deftly twisting them into a stronger cable. Once done, they knotted theirs securely to a similar length made by another trio and stood waiting for a third to twist into a still thicker cable.

A whistle too deliberate to be a bird turned my head and I saw Folk climbing an oak tree on the far bank of the river. One stepped forward and clapped his hands and the taller of our original bowmen loosed an arrow with a fine line tied to it. It nearly spitted the feet of the man waiting on the far bank.

“He’s got steady nerves,” murmured ’Gren appreciatively. He wrinkled his nose at a sodden heel of bread and tossed it aside.

“The one shooting or the one waiting?” I quizzed him, picking a thread of tough meat from between my teeth.

A cord was tied to the line, heavier rope to the cord and, after a flurry of activity up a tree on our side, a substantial cable swung above the water. The river skulked below in sullen muddy eddies.

“They look like they know what they’re doing,” Sorgrad observed. Two more cables were strung to join the first, one hand-high and the other chest-high. The Forest Folk began to cross the river, blithe as if they were on a four-span bridge.

“How’s the minstrel’s lass supposed to manage that?” ’Gren raised an eyebrow.

I looked for Frue. He was talking to the girl with the deerskin bag as she laid a silver-ringed hand on Zenela’s bruised forehead. “I’ll bet he’d welcome a tisane to wake him up. Have you any mariseed?”

Sorgrad obliged with an unappetizing cup, scummy with dull green dust.

“I’ll take some wine if you can find any, with a little hot water and honey,” I added hopefully.

“My dear girl, how terribly old-fashioned.” Sorgrad shook his head in mock horror. “Everyone of discerning taste drinks tisanes nowadays.” But he turned to investigate a stack of bottles laid carefully aside by a merchant.

I crossed the bustling campground, careful not to slip. The surface of the mud was drying out but the ooze beneath was treacherous. I nearly lost my footing when a furious argument broke out behind me. The three we reckoned were raiders stood nose to nose. Two were shoving the third man away, threatening words backed up by gestures.

“What’s their quarrel?” I asked one of the packmen.

“They just found their mate,” he told me somberly. “Throat cut, not drowned.”

I shook my head and went on my way. Pulling a knife on ’Gren is generally the last mistake a man makes. I looked around the remaining travelers. The merchants and wagoneers were busy making beasts and vehicles fit, but the rest were staring at the rope bridge with dismay, slow to shake off the shock of the flood.

Frue was talking to a Forest lad, speed and accent defeating my slight knowledge of the tongue. The lad’s green eyes darted to me several times, warming with a hint of admiration. He was a good-looking boy, at that age where height outstrips strength but with a promising width to his shoulders. Freckled like a throstle, his hair caught the frail sun shining through the tops of the trees with a gleam like burnished copper. A necklace of white and red gold twisted around the base of his throat.

I realized the woman with the deerskin bag was looking at me with an amusement that I didn’t entirely like. She was about my own height and build but looked as if she needed more meat on her bones. No-nonsense eyes, dark beneath heavy brows and unremarkable mid-brown hair studied me.

The boy asked her some question and I was gratified to find I could understand her reply, slowly spoken with a distinctly different accent.

“She needs rest and careful nursing if she is not to succumb to the rot in her lungs. The more she is moved and distressed, the weaker she will become.”

Zenela was an unhealthy color in the strengthening daylight, struggling to suppress a soft, persistent cough. Her bruised and bloodshot eyes were wide and fearful as she glanced from Frue to the woman, unable to follow their conversation.

“Where’s the closest place we can get care for her?” I wondered if we would have to part from the minstrel.

“Orial will nurse her.” Frue’s surprise was close to a rebuke. “I am born of the blood and those in my protection are treated as such in turn.”

“I’ll go and make ready.” The woman stood up and brushed the dirt from her leather leggings. “In the meantime, steep these thoroughly in boiled water. Have her drink it hot and tell her to breathe in the steam.” She unfolded a small oilskin packet and handed Frue a handful of dried flowers, nothing more enigmatic than cowslips. I remembered the bitter taste all too well from childhood rheums, when tisanes were something you took when you were sick or not at all, not an elegant fad.

I handed Frue his tepid tisane. “May we stay with you for a day or so? We could do with some rest before moving on.”

“You’re of the blood, you’ll be welcome enough.” Frue looked at me with some asperity. “Can you save your questions about old songs for later? The sooner these out-dwellers are got over the river and sent on their way, the sooner Zenela can be moved to shelter.”

“Of course.” I gave Zenela an encouraging smile and made my way over to Usara.

“What of the beasts and the goods?” A balding carter was looking dubiously upward at Forest Folk above his head weaving thin ropes around the cables of the bridge to give an illusion of sides. “We can’t carry them over that!”

“We should probe the ford,” Usara replied with an innocent air. “The bridge pillars will have spared the riverbed from being too badly scoured.”

“I’ll cut a pole,” the carter muttered unconvinced as he walked away.

I looked pointedly at Usara’s freshly damp and dirty sleeves. “And how is the ford?”

“Sound enough for the wagons, if they take it slowly; harness up an extra pair of horses.” Usara heaved a sigh. “At least whatever was awry yesterday has abated so the water isn’t fighting me.”

“Don’t take too much out of yourself,” I warned him.

He smiled thinly. “If anyone else has the skills to rebuild a riverbed, then I’ll be delighted to accept their help.”

His gaze moved to a point behind me and I turned to see Sorgrad approaching. “Ravin says to get this lot moving. The Folk will help out travelers caught in the flood but they’re not about to take on bridgekeeping for the summer.”

“Ravin?” I asked.

“With all the knives,” explained Sorgrad.

I climbed up to test the bridge for myself. Cautiously getting the measure of the sway and the flex, I walked toward the river. I looked down to a circle of upturned, curious faces.

“It’s all very well for her, she’s one of them, climb like squirrels, everyone knows that,” said a Soluran woman, her Tormalin with the lilt common to both sides of the border. Despite the mud crusting her gown, she had found a lace cap from somewhere and made time to comb out and pin up her hair. I recognized her as the woman who’d taken charge by the fire.

“That’s hardly true of me.” Sorgrad appeared at her elbow, words thick with the accents of Col. “If I risk it, perhaps you’ll try?”

He climbed up with a convincing air of uncertainty. I offered him my hand as he got to his feet with a suitably nervous smile.

“Follow me and try not to look down,” I advised reassuringly. I walked slowly, feeling the bounce of Sorgrad’s clumsy steps behind me. “This isn’t going to work if they see ’Gren going across like a startled ferret,” I murmured. “Where is he?”

“Gone to get whatever it was he hid last night,” Sorgrad replied easily. “Will that be enough to convince the good-wife?”

“Do we tie a bell around her neck, to make sure all the rest follow?” I smiled down at the open-mouthed crowd.

Sorgrad turned around with exaggerated care. “It’s a sight easier than it looks,” he said loudly, “and I’ll go for crossing dry shod than risk a second soaking!”

“Come on, Ma.” An eager lad was urging the woman on; he was nearly grown but his face had been scoured pink and clean by his mother, same as any other morning. His sisters were rolling over a sprung cask of wine discarded from a wagon, practicality doubtless learned at their mother’s knee.

The goodwife looked up, face grim but determined. Tucking the hem of her skirts into the sash at her waist, she climbed onto the cask and hauled herself clumsily onto the bridge. A timely boost to her rump from a carter surprised an oath from her that set her daughters giggling.

“Get your balance.” I gave her an encouraging smile. “Take it very slowly, one step at a time, don’t look down, that’s right, look at me, just one hand or one foot at a time.”

I continued this litany of reassurance as the woman planted one sturdy shoe in front of the other, dirty stockings over thick ankles wobbling a little, knuckles white as she gripped the ropes. She murmured a stream of prayer to Drianon as we proceeded. I added a brief request of my own; if she slipped, there was no way I could hold her.

“That’s fine, just keep going, we’ll be over the river in no time.” She glanced down for an instant at the turbid ocher waters below. “Don’t look down,” I snapped. That brought her head up in indignation. “If you don’t do this, no one will,” I told her. “You’ll be stuck for Trimon only knows how long. It’ll be days before that ford’s low enough to risk your children in.”

She drew a deep breath, moving slowly but not faltering until she reached the far bank and helpful Forest hands helped her down to the safety of the grass.

“I’d rather risk childbed five times over,” she said with feeling, fanning herself with the edge of her wrap. Still, her voice was firm as she shouted back to her children. “Mirou and Sarel, get your skirts up well out of the way. Go on, this is no time to be coy about men seeing your legs, you silly girl! Esca, you follow your sisters. No, one at a time, I don’t want you all over the water at the same time. Show some sense, Mirou, use both hands!”

She kept up this stern encouragement until they were all safely on the ground, where she hugged them as if she would never let them go. “So, what are you lot waiting for?” the goodwife called over their heads to those still dithering on the far bank.

Drianon grants mothers a tone of command second to none. By the time the sun was fully clear of the treetops, everyone was across the river bar the carters waiting with their vehicles. We all watched the first wagon edge into the water, men cursing as the water splashed up around them. The river was still running strong enough to tug at the wheels and rock the cart bed alarmingly.

“Get on, get on!” The driver lashed at his lead pair, whip merciless around their ears as the horses shied from the assault of the icy water. Men leaned into ropes twisted into the harness of each beast to drag the horses onward. The animals plunged forward, straining at their collars. With a mighty effort, they hauled the heavy cart clear, shaking and sweating, rewarded with slaps of delight, soft words and handfuls of fresh grass. The carter was soaked, but beamed with relief. His livelihood was across the river intact.

As the rest of the wagons made the crossing, I noticed Usara arguing with the merchant waiting by the last cart and I ran back across the bridge. “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t think we should risk this man in the cart.” Usara’s displeasure was clear beneath his tight politeness.

“Hory can’t take the bridge,” protested the merchant.

Hory lay on muddy blankets in the bottom of the wagon, both legs now crudely splinted, thick bandages holding green-stained dressings in place.

“You’ll use magic to get him across the water, won’t you?” I queried mildly.

“Of course,” said Usara, exasperated. “Why ever not?”

I saw fear darken Hory’s eyes. “You can trust him,” I reassured the man.

Hory’s mouth set in an obstinate line. “The ford’s sound enough. I’ll trust to that.”

“Your choice.” I took Usara by the elbow to force him out of the way. “Let the runes roll how they choose.”

Usara’s indignant reply was lost as the wagoneer whipped up the horses and drove them into the punishing stream. The cart slipped sideways at once with no weight of cargo to steady it. Hory clung to the sides, white with fear and cursing fit for a mercenary. The wagoneer lashed the beasts but the cart was increasingly dragged askew. If Hory went into the water, he wouldn’t surface again.

“Do something, Usara,” I urged.

“Why should I?” snapped the mage with ill-suppressed fury.

“Fair enough.” I folded my arms. “It won’t be the first time stupidity’s been the death of someone.”

Usara shot me a fulminating glance but shook his cuffs loose from his wrists. With a flash of golden light that left the sun colorless, he sent a shaft of magic into the water. The river seethed around the wagon in a boiling confusion of gold, azure and sapphire and the horses fought against their reins as the carter clutched them in shock.

“Get them moving, you fatherless son of a pox-addled whore,” snarled Usara. Hearing him swear like that outweighed the treat of the magelight for me. The carter brought his whip down on the wheel horses, lashing until the weals on their rumps were edged with blood. I looked across the river to see open mouths and wide eyes on every face as the wagon hauled out onto the shallow slope, the last faint tendrils of magic light fading from its wheels with the water dripping onto the muddy turf.

“Me, I’d have let them drown,” ’Gren commented. Sorgrad was a few paces behind.

“But you’re not a mage of Hadrumal, trained to use your magic for the greater good, are you?” I gave Usara a friendly smile.

The wizard muttered something under his breath, gave Sorgrad an entirely unwarranted look of annoyance and stalked away. He was breathing heavily, cheeks sunken beneath his angular cheekbones and weariness plain in the sag of his shoulders.

“It really does take it out of them, doesn’t it?” Sorgrad remarked thoughtfully.

“It does,” I agreed. “Good thing really, given what he might be able to do if he put his mind to it.”

’Gren had an unfamiliar saddlebag slung over one shoulder and I realized the raiders were nowhere to be seen. “Where did our friends go?”

“Took themselves off back toward Medeshale,” Sorgrad replied.

With a burst of activity the other travelers departed, keen to make up lost time or anxious to get away from Usara’s magic. The Forest Folk began dismantling their bridge and I saw Orial had returned with a litter of rough-cut branches and colorful cloth for Zenela.

“Your outdweller man is a mage?” The good-looking lad came over, eyes bright with curiosity.

“My friend,” I corrected him. “Yes, he is a wizard.”

“This magic, how is it learned?” he asked, evidently intrigued.

“It’s a power one is born with.” I turned my mind to my original purpose. Good deeds today might put me in credit with Saedrin; what I wanted for this life was credit with Messire and with Planir. “Do the Folk have magic among themselves?”

We walked behind four well-muscled lads supporting Zenela’s litter.

The lad shook his head. “No, we have no enchantments.”

I kept my tone light. “Not at all?”

“No. So, what brings you to the greenwood at this season?” He was looking hopeful.

“I have a book of ancient songs, some written in the tongue of the Folk.” I smiled, encouraging. “I want to learn more about them.”

If I could get Frue singing those old ballads, I could look for anyone showing any particular interest or recognition, I decided. We made our way through glorious spring green, creeping carpets of blue hornflower mimicking the bright sky above. Of course, in most old ballads the crucial revelation enabling the lost prince to prove his claim generally falls into his lap three verses before the end. Real life has never proved that easy in my experience.

The settlement Ravin led us to came as something of a surprise. I hadn’t exactly been expecting savages sitting under the trees and waiting for the nuts to fall, but I’d been imagining shelters made of leafy branches or some such. We found a broad clearing and Folk busy around a loose scatter of round dwellings cloaked in thick mats of woven tree bark. A woman was hanging brightly patterned bedding out to air over a wooden frame polished with use and children were playing happily with some half-grown pups by her door. Another circle of women was sitting busy with leatherwork and sewing. The younger ones exchanged lively banter with lads stacking firewood in precise cones close by. All wore close-tailored leather leggings with tunics of varying lengths and cut. The younger men favored a sleeveless style displaying muscular arms to best advantage while most of the women opted for plenty of pockets. So much for the exotic mysteries of the wildwood. This was domestic enough for Ryshad’s mother.

“That’ll be for us.” Frue nodded at a group busy making a new house. One girl was digging out a fire pit while another piled stones ready to line it and a third marked out a circle on the swept turf. Four older women were making a long, flexible lattice of fine wands pierced and tied with leather thongs while a couple more carried over rolls of woven matting.

“Bring her in here.” Orial appeared at a door with a spray of greenery fixed above the lintel. The litter was laid down and Frue carried Zenela into the low house. Curious, I followed to see her settled in a bed frame strung with tanned skins and covered with a woolen coverlet that could have come from any town in Ensaimin. A paroxysm of coughing left Zenela gasping, tears on her cheeks and fear in her eyes.

“Sit her forward and unlace her gown,” Orial ordered. Frue leaned Zenela against his shoulder and Orial rubbed an oily salve into the girl’s back, pungent with garlic and something else that I couldn’t identify. I coughed. There might be mysteries for apothecaries here but I saw no sign of the intense mysticism of the Soluran healers who’d mended Halice’s leg.

“Breathe out, slowly and steadily.” Orial bent her ear to Zenela’s mouth, felt the beat of her heart in her neck and then pulled down her eyelids with a gentle finger to check the color of her blood. Just like any apothecary I’d ever visited. “Now, settle yourself and try to sleep a little.” She shooed me and Frue out with one hand and I saw Zenela’s eyes were already drowsy. I wondered just what was in that rub.

Frue pushed past me and went to speak to Ravin. Sorgrad, ’Gren and Usara were nowhere to be seen and I was uncertain what to do. I didn’t like the sensation.

“You’ll share that with your men.” Orial’s voice behind me made me jump. She pointed at the circle of lattice now roofed with stronger rods all meeting in the middle and socketed into what had to be an old cartwheel. The fire irons being fixed in the pit looked suspiciously like well-hammered wagon struts as well. I thought about going to help but everyone involved looked well used to sharing the task. I wasn’t about to risk showing myself up by making some error.

I sat down next to Orial, who was pounding some hapless root to pulp with a pestle and mortar. Thick mats of coarse linen were wrapped around the walls of our new home, covered in their turn with stout woven bark securely lashed with ropes of twisted vine. “Do we thank Ravin for this?” I asked.

“Frue is of the Folk and as such can expect shelter in any campground.” Orial’s gaze was somewhat superior. “You are not of the Folk, even if you are of the blood, are you?”

“You’re not from around here either,” I countered. “Your speech is different from the rest.”

“I am from the far south,” Orial replied easily. “I am traveling to learn new wisdoms. I will return to my own people in time—for winter.” I had the impression she might have said something else but her face was hidden as she searched in her deerhide bag.

“What kind of wisdom are you seeking?” I asked casually. “Something of the kind my friend Usara has? Magic or enchantments?”

Orial pulled a little knife from her belt and added flakes shaved from a leathery dried stem to her paste. “I’m a herbalist, as my mother before me and most of the women in my line. I look for new knowledge of roots and leaves, powers of flower and fruit to soothe and cure.” She nodded toward the new house. “You should go and light the first fire in the hearth, for luck.”

Like any new bride in Vanam, taking possession of the kitchen soon to become her whole world? Not likely, I thought. Orial was humming again, intent on her work.

“Frue was playing that tune last night,” I remarked. “Do you know him?”

“Not beyond brushing shoulders today.” Orial shrugged. “It’s ‘The Lay of Mazir’s Hands.’ All healers sing it, for luck.”

“Could you sing it for me, please?” I sat on the damp earth, hugging my knees, all innocent appeal. There was something about the tune tugging at me like an importunate child.

Orial looked up at the sun, overhead now and dappling the ground with shadows. “I suppose I could spare a little while.” Her voice was rich and full, her accent far closer to what I remembered of my father’s than Frue’s thicker, more fluid tongue and as the tune soared and dipped, I listened close for the words. Kespar, whoever he might have been, had been duped into a wager with Poldrion that he could swim the river between this world and the Other faster than the Ferryman could row his boat across. Unsurprisingly, the demons got him and Kespar went home to Mazir with pride and hide both in tatters. She healed him with love, herbs and teasing rebuke. That was the burden of the verses at least but the refrain meant nothing to me beyond a teasing echo.

“What does that mean,” I asked, “ ‘ardeila menalen reskelserr’?”

“It’s just jalquezan,” Orial struggled for a translation as I sat looking blankly at her. “Word-music.”

“But what does it signify?” I persisted.

“It’s meaningless.” She waved her pestle in a helpless gesture. “Nonsense, just word-music.”

“You sing this for luck?” I itched to go and fetch my song book. After the delays of the journey and the reverses of the night before, it finally looked as if the luck was running my way.

“It’s a tale reckoned to bring good fortune to medicine or poultice.” Orial was looking perplexed.

“Are there other songs you sing for luck, especially for different things?” I asked with studied casualness. “Are there many with this jalquezan?”

“There’s ‘Viyenne and the Does,’ ” Orial said after a moment. “When she fled Kespar’s advances, she had to turn herself into a deer and hide in the midst of a herd. Then there’s ‘Sens and the Bridge,’ ‘Mazir and the Storm.’ They all have jalquezan but I don’t know of anyone singing them for any particular reason. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “Just curious.” I got up and headed for our neat new house, where Frue was unrolling his sodden blanket and spreading it on the roof to dry. Our other bags were stacked inside the door and I opened mine with trepidation. My clothes were damp and smelled like a bucket of frogs but the oilskin I’d added to the song book’s wrappings had been coin well spent. The linen beneath was barely damp at the outermost corners and the book within was untouched. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Frue was looking at me with mingled irritation and amusement as he tenderly inspected his lute. Trimon only knows how he’d kept that safe from the flood. “What are you getting that out for?”

“Orial and I have been talking about songs and I’d like her opinion on some of these.” I smiled at him. “She’s been telling me about the jalquezan. That would be the bits you couldn’t translate for me?” I was mentally kicking myself for mistaking Frue’s meaning when he’d said that. “Mazir and the Storm,” here it was. A tale of losing the path and finding it again.

“Of course,” he nodded, unconcerned. “No one can, I told you.”

I managed a casual tone. “You said there was no point singing these on the road, where no one would understand the words. How about giving Orial a song or two as she works? These Folk will be able to follow them and it would go some way to thanking them for their help today, their care of Zenela. We could both put something back in the balance, couldn’t we? No time like the present, isn’t that what they say?”

Frue looked around the glade where men and women were sitting over undemanding tasks or openly taking their ease in the thin sunshine. “You know, whoever your father is, Livak, I’ll bet he’s a man with a lot to answer for.”

He picked up his lute nevertheless and carried it over to sit by Orial. I followed with the precious song book and propped it in my lap so Frue could see the pages. He said something to Orial that escaped me and then struck up a jaunty melody. Forest words in his rich tenor were less easy to follow, but this was one he had already translated for me on the road. A man had gone wandering in the deep woods, finding a strange woman who—for some reason I missed— turned into a grotesque hag when he pursued her. Our hero declined her invitation to stay as her lover and tried to find his way back to his people, only to find himself lost among strange trees and stranger encounters, each taking him farther from home. When he eventually came full circle, he discovered he’d been absent five full years, not just the five days he’d lived through.

Now that I heard it sung for the first time, this jalquezan clamored for my attention, underscoring every instance of the man’s lament over his plight. The underlying rhythms were increasingly familiar; Geris the gentle scholar had used aetheric charms with just such a beat. The Elietimm bastards who’d killed him and had done their best to pull my wits out through my ears had spoken foul enchantments ringing with just such a cadence. But what did the words mean? Was this Artifice or coincidence?

Frue finished with a flourish of chords and two women came over to join us.

“That’s a tale I haven’t heard since I was a little girl,” one smiled.

“I have a book full of ancient songs.” I turned the pages so she and her companion could see. “Are there any others you know?”

The women shrugged. “We do not read, me nor Serida,” the first one explained easily.

“How about this?” Frue turned back a few leaves of parchment and frowned as he fingered the frets on his lute. His face cleared and he began a tune with a tricky shift of pitch in the middle of the verse. The women nodded with laughing eyes and joined him in a lively song about the original White Raven. Orial looked up from her work and added a descant and Frue slipped into a lower harmony, blending and dropping away in elegant counterpoint. I listened intently, finding myself nodding to the beat, but while the tune remained constant, the words dissolved into chaos when they reached the refrain.

Laughing, Frue stopped playing and Orial chuckled. She said something to the women and I cursed my lack of this tongue yet again. Orial looked at me. “This is the problem with jalquezan; everyone knows a different version!” She repeated herself to the first woman, who nodded after a moment.

“Once again, then.” Frue struck up the tune and this time they all agreed on the chorus, their exuberant song turning heads all around the camp. More Folk came over and joined in the song, each adapting their accustomed words to the majority.

The first woman looked at me when they finished. “You’ve yet to light a fire in your hearth, haven’t you?” Her Tormalin was barely accented to my ears. “You should do it before the sun begins to sink.”

She stood up so I set the song book carefully on the ground beside Frue. “Will you look after this, if I leave it with you?” I asked nervously.

“Like a child of my blood,” he promised. Since he’d taken better care of his lute through the flood than Zenela, I judged he meant that.

I crossed the open glade to fall in with the woman as she emerged with a bundle of sticks from her shelter. “My name is Livak.”

“I am Almiar.” With scant flesh on her bones and skin tanned like fine kidskin, I couldn’t put an age to her beyond being of my mother’s generation. Her russet hair was generously sprinkled with white and her eyes were a warm brown, deep set in a lattice of wrinkles woven from good humor. “You are very welcome here, my dear.”

“I’m curious about the song you were singing,” I said casually. “How is it that you all knew different words, especially the jalquezan?”

Almiar was laying a precise fire in the stone-lined pit, setting tight-pressed lumps of dried moss among the sticks. “You learn such things at your mother’s side,” she shrugged. “As she did from hers and so on, back down the Tree of Years. Everything grows and changes, words are no different.”

In other words, with every shift and repetition, changes of emphasis and paraphrasing crept in, until what might once have been aetheric enchantment was now a myriad versions of nonsense. My earlier optimism sank like a stone; there was going to be no instant revelation to send me straight to the feast at the end of the ballad, was there?

Almiar offered me steel and flint and then peered up through the smoke hole at the center of the roof at the sun. “You could probably still use a burning-glass, if you prefer.”

But the rhythm I was hearing from the songs outside still rang with the pulse of aetheric magic. I cleared my throat. “I have another way to light a fire.” I knelt beside Almiar and took a breath to steady the qualms in my stomach. Artifice had invaded my mind and pursued me with merciless intent on more than one occasion. I was in two minds about ever using it myself, but this was a small enough trick, one of the very few I knew and harmless enough, no more than the festival trick I’d first thought it. “Talmia megrala eldrin fres.”

Wouldn’t the older women have the wisdom of the Folk in their keeping? If they saw I had some learning of such craft, they would surely share it.

Almiar looked startled as little yellow flames crackled among the sticks, setting the moss flaring. “How did you do that?”

“It’s a—a charm of sorts,” I told her.

“How clever.” Admiration overcame her shock. “You are a mage then, like your man?”

“His magic is of the elements.” I shook my head. “This is a trick of a scarcer magic, what they call Artifice. Don’t you have similar charms among the Folk?”

“Oh no, I’ve never seen the like before.” Almiar’s eyebrows rose and I’d have wagered every coin ever passed through my hands that she spoke the truth. “It’s a marvel, isn’t it?”

I smiled to hide my disappointment. Almiar suddenly looked concerned. “You won’t show the children, will you? They’ll start making a nuisance with flint and steel and even with the woods so wet—”

“No, I won’t,” I assured her. “But you could use it for your hearth, tell it to your friends.” If the little fire trick spread, perhaps it would spark memory or recognition somewhere. I was casting runes at a venture now, but couldn’t think what else to do. “Try it yourself,” I urged, brashing a bare patch of earth clear before making a careful pile of kindling. “Feel the song in the words.”

“Could I really?” Temptation was warring with her natural inclination to prudence.

“Just concentrate on the words,” I encouraged her.

“Talmia megrala eldrin free.” At least Almiar’s saying it convinced me the lilt of the Folk ran through the incomprehensible words. A faint flicker lit the kindling.

“That really is remarkable!” Delight at her success shone bright in Almiar’s dark eyes. “Now, will you be cooking for your men tonight or would you like to eat at my hearth?”

“They’re not my men,” I told her firmly. If they were, they’d choose anyone else’s cooking over mine. “We’d be honored to eat with you.”

Almiar paused at the doorway. “You have the instincts of your blood, child, for all you’ve been reared as an out-dweller.” She ducked outside without further ado.

I looked around at the shelter hemming me in and sighed. This was all very well in the balmy days of spring and summer, but I’d wager a penny to a packload that it would be cursed cold and damp come the winter. I’d rather have a stout stone house and a broad hearth, preferably with the coin to keep a maid busy bending her back over the cooking and cleaning.

Wondering where the others had got themselves to, I went out into the sunshine, blinking. The Folk were busy around their homes; a woman came to leave a pile of cooking pots by our door with a friendly smile and a girl shyly offered me a bowl of cresses gathered from some nearby stream. I could have bought either within half a street from home in Vanam.