The Ring Оf Fire. The Wolf Bell

NINE

The kitchen was unbearably hot. Mawzee cakes and side meat were sizzling on the great black stove. Mama flipped half a dozen cakes onto the platter before she looked at Zephy. Her face was flushed from the heat. She pushed back a wisp of hair with that quick, angry motion Zephy dreaded. “The honeyrot, Zephy. Pour it out. Where have you been! Put some charp fruit in a basket and cut the bread.”

Zephy fled gladly to the sculler, grabbed up a basket, filled it with charp fruit, and laid six loaves on top. She hurried through the kitchen with her attention fully on the basket and pushed through the door into the long-room.

The clatter of voices and plates hit her like a blow. The two chamber girls were hurrying between the crowded tables with steaming platters, Sulka’s pale hair fallen around her shoulders, and Thara having trouble getting her bulk through the narrow aisles between the backs of the seated men, her platter held high. Zephy dropped her basket on the serving table and began to cut the bread, then stopped to pour out honeyrot as the men around her clambered for drink. The noise, trapped under the low rafters, churned so the voices came in scraps of shouting that seemed to explode around her. She loaded a tray with bread and brimming mugs and started down between the aisles. The food and drink were grabbed away by great hands with seldom a thank you or a notice of whether anyone carried the tray or whether it walked by itself. There were four Kubalese sitting with Kearb-Mattus. Where had they come from? How could they show their faces after sacking Urobb! Kearb-Mattus’s voice drowned out his neighbors. She watched them with hatred, listening in spite of herself.

“—of Fire Scourge, it should be a sight, all the pomp and fuss. You’ve never seen such a—” She lost some of it in the ruckus, then, “Five days of praying on their knees and wouldn’t you know—” She held her breath, straining to listen, her fury growing. “—on the last night!” Kearb-Mattus shouted, and the men laughed fit to kill. Zephy turned away, toward the serving table.

The Trashsinger and the Vendor were sitting on a bench out of the way, their backs to the wall, making themselves a part of the hubbub of market day; remembering, she thought, when they, too, were shouting young men strong in their bodies and boisterous in their ways. She smiled down at them and handed them honeyrot and bread.

And when she turned to look back at the room, Elij Cooth had joined the Kubalese. He sat among them laughing. She stared at him, her anger rising anew. Elij was as much a traitor as his father if he could pander to the Kubalese so. What was the pact that Kubal and Cloffi were supposed to have made, anyway? Did the Landmaster believe the Kubalese would honor any pact? She stacked dirty plates onto her tray, pressing through between the crowded rows. Elij was leaning over the table, reaching for bread. Zephy gave him a look of hatred as she passed—and suddenly she was jerked back and pulled around so she lost her balance and fell, groping, across Elij’s lap.

She kicked at him and struggled; the tray fell, the dishes clattering. Elij’s grip was like steel. He was drunk, drunk and pawing her. She twisted, kicked again; there was laughter all around her—then Elij had his hand under her tunic. She snatched up the tray and jammed it into his stomach, felt his grip loosen, then was on her feet, shoving the greasy tray in his face.

She stood in the sculler seething with rage, hating Elij Cooth, hating everything; hating a system where a girl could be pawed and everyone laughed. Hating, most of all, her own weakness for not being able to fight back.

At last, her rage hard and cold inside her, she straightened her tunic and went back into the kitchen.

Mama had left the pans soaking. Zephy began to scrub them, her anger driving her so she broke a nail at the quick and swore like a man. Thara came to help her, then Sulka with another load. They glanced at her and grinned, but she didn’t acknowledge their looks. Her anger was so great it kept even those two silent, and at last she escaped toward the square.

The sun was warm on the empty streets. Burgdeeth seemed utterly deserted; only the myriad smells—tannery, baking, tammi drying, outhouses—would tell you anyone lived there. The cobbles glinted in the sunlight, and ahead of her the colors in the square were as brilliant as Zandourian silk. She came around a wagon into the square—and stopped.

Coming down the street she had heard no sound from the square. Now she could only stand staring at the people who were crowded there utterly silent: the square overflowed with wagons and animals, and with people still as death, everyone staring in one direction.

They were watching a bright wagon, and Anchorstar, she thought wildly, her mind exploding with the word; for the man of Meatha’s vision stood tall in the open back.

She drew closer and could see flowers and birds painted on the sides of the wagon, and the words, JUGGLER AND MASTER OF TRICKS. The two Carriolinian horses were just as Meatha had described them: butternut, all butternut, not a stroke of white.

The back of the closed wagon had been opened out like a stage, and there above the crowd, the tall imposing man held the throng silent by his still presence, his hands raised. The sunlight slashed across his satin cloak so it shone with every shade of red; the gravity of his face seemed to hold the crowd in awe. . . .

Then suddenly he was juggling. She didn’t see him start, one minute he was still, and the next he was tossing a dozen glinting spinning objects high in the air. His expression and stance had not changed. Most jugglers—though they had few enough in Burgdeeth where the Landmaster hardly tolerated them—would be grimacing and frowning now, dancing around to keep their wares balanced, smiling and scowling as they performed their simple tricks. Anchorstar’s face was quiet, his eyes vivid and cool. His hands seemed hardly to move as the objects flew and twisted and fell to be tossed again, twelve tumbling golden cages glinting and winking in the sunlight And in the cages—birds! Bright little birds, each one lifting to the rise and fall of the golden cages with little lithe movements as if they had done this trick a hundred times and in truth were enjoying it. There was no frantic fluttering, only the graceful, delicate balancing as the cages tumbled and gleamed.

And then she saw Meatha, standing farther along the edge of the square. She was staring up at Anchorstar as if she had been turned to stone. And, though Anchorstar seemed to be looking beyond her across the crowd, Zephy felt sure it was Meatha on whom his attention really dwelt.

Meatha, pale as whitebarley flour. Meatha, caught in something—caught . . . And then Zephy knew: they were speaking. Like Ynell, silently speaking across the heads of the crowd. This was the vision Meatha had seen: the old man, the wagon, the silent communication.

When Anchorstar had finished juggling, the crowd remained quiet, as if it had been mesmerized with the flirting circle of motion and light; and then their silence broke, they roared with applause, stamping and shouting and pressing closer around the wagon.

Where the back of the wagon had been dropped to make the stage, and the sides folded back, you could see that the inside was painted in small intricate patterns of red and gold. The tailgate was supported on the carven legs. And there around the juggler’s feet was the paraphernalia he used to entertain, cages and boxes and jars, and a brightly painted barrel, which he now held up, pouring water out into three cups and passing them down into the crowd. He had ceased to look at Meatha; and Meatha herself seemed dazed, shrinking into the crowd as if she wished not to be touched or disturbed.

The banners in the square hung slack in the windless afternoon; the statue of the Luff’Eresi shone blindingly in the harsh sun, a small pool of shadow dark around its feet. Now the juggler was holding up the cask, and the liquid he poured was red wine; it was tasted, was passed around, and a sigh of wonder escaped the crowd. Zephy learned later that he had made an egg jump in the air from one hat to another, and then had put it into a yellow silk bag, handed it to a trader and, when the trader opened the bag, a full-grown rooster had flown out. He had made divvot cards appear in the hats and pockets of the crowd; and he had pointed out silver coins in empty pails presented to him, pails which he never touched. But the juggling—the juggling of the cages was the most wonderful.

He held up a silver staff now, and the noise of the crowd died as sharp and quick as if a knife had sliced it

And there . . . Oh, but the Deacons had ridden into the square. They paused as one, silent and ominous, their swords across their saddles and the purple flag of Burgdeeth hanging limp but commanding atop the color-bearer’s staff. The crowd began to shift and mutter, to glance around, some to leave the square.

And Zephy saw that in the opposite corner the Landmaster waited, his gray stallion pawing. The Landmaster’s girth and height were impressive; his uniform shone. The people glanced at him and shrank more quickly from the painted wagon, pushing and shouldering each other.

The space around the wagon widened. Soon the juggler stood alone.

Zephy pushed through the crowd to the hedge where Meatha stood staring in frozen panic. The shadow of wings darkened her face.

The Deacons surrounded the wagon. The girls watched as Anchorstar descended and began to tighten his harness, and to close up the tailgate and the sides. There were no harsh words, hardly any words. They seemed unnecessary. The Deacons’ intent was clear.

When Anchorstar climbed into the wagon at last, he looked terrifying in his calmness. He lifted the reins without comment, backed the horses, and turned them toward the south as the Deacons were directing—there was nowhere else to go. To the north lay only Dunoon. And that, of course, would be forbidden to him.

When Anchorstar had gone, when the wagon could no longer be seen down the road and people had at last begun to return to the square, Zephy and Meatha slipped out through the housegardens, past the plum grove, and into the Landmaster’s southern whitebarley field. The grain was tall and heavy-headed, ready for harvest, and they would be dealt with harshly if they were caught there, knocking heads off the stalks as they crept through. They slipped along as gently as they could, trying not to shake the stalks, planning that when they came out onto the road at the end of the field they would run to catch up with the wagon.

But three mounted Deacons guarded the road, Zephy’s blood went cold as she stared up at their closed, stern faces. “A donkey,” she cried, desperate for an excuse. “Have you seen a brown donkey? Dragging her halter rope. . .”

The Deacons did not comment They stared back toward the village in clear command as to the direction the girls should take. There was nothing you could do, there was no way to battle Deacons. Defeated, they turned around and started back up the road.

“I hate them!” Meatha whispered vehemently.

“They don’t have to be so overbearing just because—just because . . . Oh, to Urdd with the flaming Deacons!”

Meatha seemed utterly destroyed. Zephy watched her, concerned. Sometimes you couldn’t tell with Meatha; there was something about her, a kind of delicate, tight-strung stubbornness that . . . Then Zephy caught her breath as Meatha dissolved into sudden shaking sobs. Alarmed, Zephy shoved her into the whitebarley where she would not be seen, and put her arms around her. She could feel the wracking sobs, could feel Meatha’s heart pounding. She looked down the road, terrified that the Deacons would come, then pushed Meatha deeper into the field, propelling her away from the road until they were well out in the middle of the tall stand of grain.

Never in her life had she seen Meatha so out of control. She had seen her cry silent tears when she was hurt by someone, but never tears like this, crying as if her very soul was lost.

When it seemed Meatha could cry no longer, she stared up at Zephy, her face blotched, her eyes swollen. “He spoke to me, Zephy. Anchorstar spoke to me. He couldn’t tell me all of it, and now they’ve driven him away. There was something . . .” She pressed her fist to her mouth, then at last began again, “It was like a fog, when you know things are in it but you can’t see them. He said we must talk together. There is something I must do. For Anchorstar, something I must do for him,” she said with awe. And then the hopelessness of her defeat seemed to fill her and shake her utterly, and she dissolved into tears again, her face growing so white Zephy was frightened for her. “He said that the Children . . . that the Children . . . Oh, I wish I understood . . .

“It wasn’t anything in words, just in knowing. Then he made me go away from him in my mind. He wanted his mind free because he could feel the Deacons coming.

“And when he drove away I tried to speak with him, but I couldn’t. There was nothing. And now it’s too late.” She sat staring miserably at the whitebarley that made a wall around them.

“It’s not too late. We’ll think of something.” Zephy’s anger surged at the Deacons, at her own helplessness. “Don’t cry! It doesn’t help to cry/”

Only a faint rustle of the whitebarley told Zephy they were not alone; she blanched with fear as they crouched, frozen; it would do no good to run.

The heavy sheaves parted.

And Thorn of Dunoon stood looking down at them, his red hair catching the sun, his eyes quiet and concerned.

“It’s all right, the Deacons have gone back. You can come out now. Here . . .” He knelt and lifted Meatha as easily as he might lift a new fawn and began to make his way back through the whitebarley toward the road. Zephy followed him in silent confusion.

Then in a flash of memory she saw a picture of Thorn and Anchorstar beside the goats, facing Kearb-Mattus together. Thorn of Dunoon—and Anchorstar!

They went up the road quickly and through the plum grove to a vetchpea patch on the other side, pausing to talk only when they were at last sheltered.

And there in the shade of the heavy vines Thorn told them about Anchorstar and about how the old man had come to him at night on the mountain. If he paused sometimes, perhaps it was to remember.

He told them how Anchorstar had appeared suddenly, coming so silently in the night that even the guardbucks didn’t hear him, and had spoken to him about the Children of Ynell. He told how Anchorstar had known about the spark in Thorn’s own being that made him like Ynell. Did Thorn leave something out, hold something back, or did Zephy only imagine that? Yet why would he? He had given them his trust implicitly: for Thorn’s confession to them of his own skills put his very life in their hands.

He told them how he had slipped into Anchorstar’s wagon before Anchorstar started his act, had been there inside all the time the juggler was doing his tricks, then had ridden out with him, the two of them laying a plan to get Anchorstar to Dunoon. “For he would speak with you two,” he said matter-of-factly, brushing a gnat from his face—a flock of them buzzed among the vetchpea vines, annoying in the later afternoon heat. “He would speak with you both,” he repeated in answer to Zephy’s surprised look. “For you are the only two older ones in Burgdeeth.”

“The only two older what?” Zephy whispered, going cold.

“The only two . . .” He studied her as he waited for her to understand. But she refused to understand and only stared at him blankly.

“The only two Children of Ynell,” Meatha breathed at last her eyes never leaving Thorn’s.

“I’m not . . .” Zephy began. But she could not say more, she could not deny it not after the vision in the tunnel. “I’m not . . .” she tried again, almost inaudibly. Then she gave it up and sat staring at Thorn. She did not speak of the tunnel. Nor did Meatha.

“I have a trace of the gift,” Thorn said. “But only a trace. Anchorstar will need all three of us.” He would say nothing more. He bent the talk instead to laying out the plan he had discussed with Anchorstar. It sounded simple enough, to bring the wagon through Burgdeeth after midnight, after the Singing was finished and people had gone to bed. Simple, and dangerous. For if Anchorstar were caught Thorn felt he would be killed.

“Couldn’t he leave his horses and wagon somewhere and go on foot?” Zephy asked. “It would be safer.”

“But how?” Thorn said. “Near Burgdeeth they would be seen, and anywhere off in the hills there would be no one to care for the horses. Tied animals run out of grazing, loose animals stray . . .” he gazed at her, questioning, and she realized what a silly question it had been. His eyes were such a dark green, like the river where it ran deep and still. And direct, so direct they made her self-conscious—yet they made her trust him, too. She felt that the three of them were bound together suddenly in something as bizarre and terrifying as anything she could imagine. The three of them . . . You three—and three—the words seemed to echo from a long way off. You three—you will reach out—if you are the chosen. She stared at Thorn and felt her spirit twist in sudden confusion.

It was Meatha who seemed transported into a joy of spirit so absolute that Zephy was sobered by it, for Meatha was lifted into a passion that encompassed her utterly. Was this what Anchorstar was capable of? And then she thought, could he be other than what they believed, could he be leading them into something evil?

But Thorn—Thorn would not deceive them.

And when she thought of the stone in the tunnel she knew that an aura of otherness, of mystery and wonder, truly did exist. She thought of telling Thorn about the stone.

But she would wait. If Anchorstar had tricked them, tricked Thorn, then it would be too late; and she vowed to keep the thought of it hidden when at last she faced Anchorstar.

It was nearly evening when they left the housegardens and went to fetch Loke and the bucks. They took the bucks to be bedded down with Nida and Dess, watered and fed them, then stood leaning silently on the rail. “The Singing will begin soon,” Thorn said. “We’d best make a spectacle of it. More eyes than mine saw you two staring at Anchorstar in the square when everyone else had gone. And saw you leave it, too. We’d best make it appear that Anchorstar is well out of our thoughts, that we’re wild with the pleasure of Market Night. Do you remember last year, Zephy, when you danced ‘Jajun Jajun’ alone atop the Storemaster’s wagon, with Shanner and half a dozen clapping and playing for you?”

Did he remember that? She flushed, feeling as simple and hot-faced as any Burgdeeth girl. “Tonight,” he said lightly, “we’ll dance ‘Jajun Jajun’ as it’s never been danced before.” His smile was so full of easy friendliness that she couldn’t help but smile back. But she thought later, I’m not so shy with other boys. What’s the matter with me?

Well, you couldn’t be shy with the music playing; you couldn’t be shy when you were singing. Caught up in the rhythm of the music and the blaze of lantern light that drove back the darkness, they danced and sang and forgot everything else. Zephy forgot her shyness in the laughter of Thorn’s eyes, in his voice as they sang the old songs.

She played her gaylute for the singing but quickly handed it to Meatha when Thorn swept her into a Sangurian reel that lifted her, made her forget the danger that lay ahead of them—the music was a river that carried them churning wildly down its length so no other thought was possible.

Again and again she saw Mama dancing with Kearb-Mattus. She was embarrassed when Mama danced the wild, clapping Rondingly with him, for he did not know the steps and stumped clumsily beside her. In spite of his strange appeal, the Kubalese was not made for dancing. And Mama made a spectacle of herself, clapping and whirling like a girl. It was embarrassing to see her own mother behaving with such abandon.

Late in the night Elij presented Thorn with a sheaf of whitebarley and claimed Zephy as partner. He was so drunk he could hardly keep his feet Zephy tried to stay out of his way, but she was well-trodden on before the music stopped and she turned away from him—only to be pulled back to face him.

“What’s th’ matter, Zephy? One more dance—one dance . . .” His arm went around her too tight and when he saw Thorn approaching, his grip tightened further and his voice came loud and slurred. “How c’n you lower yourself to dance w’th a—w’th a goatherd!”

She stared at Elij, then pushed him away and went boldly to Thorn. Elij’s gaze followed her, his eyes like ice.

When the music stopped again, Elij was beside them, his voice carrying across the square, “A girl pregnant by a goatherd—a Cherban goatherd—would be driven from Cloffi in rags.”

Zephy’s face flamed. Someone snickered. She could not look at Thorn. Someone else hooted, and several boys began to laugh. When she did glance sideways at Thorn, she saw his fists clenched as if he were trying to hold his temper.

“C’me here, Zephy Eskar. Come over here and let’s see what the young goatherd finds so appealing. C’m on—let’s pass it around a little . . .”

Thorn had him down, pounding him, and Elij so drunk he could hardly fight back. Thorn’s fury made Zephy go cold as she grabbed his arm, dragged at him. “He’s drunk, Thorn, he’s too drunk . . .” And Thorn, comprehending finally, pulled back and stood up, ashamed, Elij crouching before him in the street. The catcalls and laughter were ugly, were all directed at Thorn; though no one made a move toward him. “Come on,” Zephy whispered. He stood belligerently, furious. Then he seemed to collect himself, and took her arm at last, and led her away from the street. She wondered if his fury would spill over and lash out at her, too. It was strange that the Deacons, who had watched from their elevated seats at the side of the square, had not come forward to beat Thorn. What devious punishment did they have in their minds for later?

Fog had begun to drift in from the river and settle between the buildings as they stood together in a side street “I’m sorry,” Thorn said, “to cause talk like that about you. Goatherd. It’s not a nice word in Burgdeeth.”

“It wasn’t you that caused Elij’s rudeness. If I’d been nice to him, if I’d danced with him—he stepped all over my feet” she said trying to make light of it.

“Does he—does he court you?”

“Me?” She didn’t know whether to laugh or to scream at him. “Me and Elij Cooth? Oh no, Thorn. I wouldn’t have him.”

“That shows good taste,” Thorn said, grinning. “I never thought you’d have him. But sometimes . . .” he paused and studied her. “Usually a girl has little choice.”

She grinned back. “I’d feed him painon bark and ashes and make him so sick he’d be sorry he ever known me.”

Thorn smiled. He was so close she trembled. Surely he would kiss her. She was terrified. Then when he didn’t, when he took her hand instead and turned back toward the square, there was an emptiness like lead inside.

In the square, the music was quieter. Elij had gone and interest in the fight had died away. Other couples had drifted off, and the crowd was smaller. Soon four of the Deacons retired. The fog settled down thicker, fuzzing the lantern light to a glistening haze, then growing brighter as the moons rose behind it.

When the music was stilled and the square empty at last, Zephy and Thorn and Meatha met in the housegardens, each going separately through back ways. There they woke Loke where he slept wrapped in blankets by the donkey pen.