“Now, that’s a welcome thing,” one woman said. “Will you be staying long, good sir?”
“I was thinking of it. I need to search the woods and fields for more herbs, you see. Do you know of anyone who’d take in a lodger? I can pay, of course.”
The three women thought hard, running over their own domestic arrangements aloud and finally reaching the reluctant conclusion that they had no room.
“Now, there’s Banna,” one of them remarked. “She’s got that little hut in back of her house.”
“She’ll talk the poor man’s ear off,” said another.
“But who else has a hut?” said the first.
When the conclusion was reached that no one else did, Nevyn got directions to the farm where Banna, a widow, lived with her only son. Nevyn found the farmstead about a mile down the road, a big enclosure behind a low, packed-earth wall. Since the gate was open, he led his horse and mule inside and looked round. In the muddy yard stood a big stone round house, a cow barn, various sheds for chickens and suchlike, and off to one side, a shabby wooden hut in the shade of a poplar tree. When Nevyn called out a halloo, a young, sandy-haired man hurried out of the cow barn with a rake in his hands.
“Good morrow, are you Covyl?” Nevyn said. “The villagers told me you and your mother might take in a paying lodger. I’m a traveling herbman, you see.”
“Ah.” Covyl leaned on the rake, looked Nevyn over, turned his attention to the horse and mule, considered Nevyn a bit more, then nodded. “Might. Depends on what Mam says.”
“I see. Can I speak to your mother?”
Covyl considered for a long slow moment.
“In a bit. She’s out picking berries.”
Covyl turned and walked back to the barn. Nevyn sat down on the ground by the wall and waited, watching flies drift in air scented with cow. He was just making up his mind that he’d be better off in the forest when a stout woman, with wisps of gray hair peeking under her widow’s black headscarf, came hurrying in. Behind her a beautiful blond lass, too nicely dressed to be living on the farm, led a small skinny lad with the biggest eyes Nevyn had ever seen. All of them carried wooden buckets, and the lads mouth was a predictable purple stain. Nevyn bowed to the widow and ran through his tale once again.
“An herbman, good sir?” Banna said. “Well, the gall of my son for making you wait out here! He should have had the decency of offering you a bit of ale. Come in, come in.”
Inside the house, it was cooler, but the flies still drifted and the scent was just as strong. The big half-round of the main room was scattered with straw, a few pieces of much-repaired furniture, sacks of oats, and farm tools. The forest began to look better and better. Banna, the lass, and the child put their buckets onto a wobbly table. When the lad reached for more berries, the lass caught his hand.
“That’s enough, Aderyn,” she said. “You’ll get a stomachache, and we’ve got to go back soon.”
“I want to stay and talk to the herbman.”
“Maybe another day.”
“But he’ll be gone another day.”
Nevyn started to make some trivial remark, but the words froze in his mouth as he glanced at the lass and recognized the soul looking out from her eyes. Ysolla, by the gods!
“Well, good, sir,” Aderyn said. “Won’t you be gone?”
“Oh, I doubt it.” Nevyn hurriedly collected his wits. “I’m just here to ask good Banna if she’ll let me stay in her hut.”
“Oh, I’m sure we can work something out,” Banna said.
“A bit of coin will be welcome. So, here, Addo, the next time Cadda brings you to visit, you can talk to the herbman.”
While Banna was showing him the hut, she was more than glad to tell Nevyn about Cadda, her youngest daughter, who had gotten herself a good place up in Lord Maroic’s dun as the servant for the bard’s woman. Banna also made it quite clear that Aderyn was the son of the bard and his wife. She repeated it several times lest Nevyn think her daughter had a bastard.
The hut itself was small, with a packed-earth floor, a tiny hearth, and one narrow window with a cowhide drape for want of proper shutters. Nevyn decided it would have to do. While he unpacked his goods from his horse and mule, Banna swept the dust out of the hut and covered the floor with fresh straw. After he shooed Banna out, he spread his bedroll in the curve of the wall, arranged his canvas packs of herbs opposite, and dumped his saddlebags and cooking pots by the hearth. He sat down in the middle of the floor and looked over his new home, such as it was.
So, Ysolla’s here, Nevyn thought, or rather, Cadda—I mustn’t make that mistake! She was the first sign he’d had in fifty years that he might be drawing close to the soul who’d once been Brangwen of the Falcon. Since his youth, he’d looked constantly for her to be reborn as he wandered the kingdom, with only the chance that is more than chance to guide him. Although he’d been expecting her to come back immediately, so that when she, in her new body, was about fifteen, he’d be only thirty-six, young enough to marry her, the Lords of Wyrd had chosen otherwise with their usual contempt for a man’s vanity. He had never found her. Though he was growing weary with age, he felt no signs of sickness, no omens of approaching death. At his level of the dweomer, he should have been able to foretell his death by now, in order to make the proper plans for leaving life, but he saw nothing. The Lords of Wyrd had accepted his rash vow literally: he would never rest until he found her and set things right.
“Ysolla had a hand in the tragedy,” Nevyn remarked to the fireplace. “It’s just possible that the Lords of Wyrd would bring them together again.”
The fireplace stared back in silence, which Nevyn took as doubt. It would still be worth taking a look around while he worked on banishing the drought. He could simply announce his presence as an herbman and get himself invited to visit Lord Maroic’s dun.
Oddly enough, it was the bard’s son who provided Nevyn with an even easier entry to the dun. The very next day, Aderyn came down to see him. Nevyn was honestly surprised, because he’d assumed that the lad’s interest was only a childish curiosity.
“Do you mind if I see the herbs and things?” Aderyn said. “Am I in the way? Da says I’m always in the way.”
“Not in the way at all. Maybe you can help me, in fact. Are there any ruined or abandoned farms around here? Certain kinds of herbs grow in land that’s been allowed to go fallow, you see, and those are the kind of herbs I need to pick.”
“There’s one, truly. There was this farm, and Lord Cenydd of the Boar said it was his, but our lord said it was his, and so they fought over it. So the farmer got scared and just left, and now there isn’t anyone there to fight over.”
“Oh, ye gods! Well, that’s a pack of noble-born warriors for you.”
“Don’t you like riders and battles and stuff?”
“Not truly, but I suppose you do. Lads usually do.”
“I don’t.” Aderyn wrinkled up his nose. “I’ll never be a rider when I grow up. It’s just being cattle thieves. I don’t care what anyone says.”
In surprise Nevyn considered the lad. Aderyn twisted one foot behind the other, balanced precariously, and looked wide-eyed around the hut.
“Well, here,” Nevyn said. “Would you like to show me where this farm is and help pick herbs? We’ll have to go tell your mother where we’re going first.”
“Oh, I would. There’s never anything to do up in the fort. Let’s go ask Mam.”
Nevyn got a cloth sack, some clean rags to wrap herbs in, and his small silver sickle. With Aderyn chattering all the way, they went up to the dun. As soon as they came through the gates, Cadda ran over and grabbed Aderyn’s arm.
“Where have you been?” Cadda said. “I’ve been worried sick.”
“I just went down to see the herbman. Where’s Mam? I’ve got to ask her if I can go for a walk.”
“She’s waiting upon Lady Cabrylla, but your Da’s in the great hall.” Cadda glanced at Nevyn. “Shall I tell our lord’s lady that
you’re in the village, sir? I’ll wager she’d like a look at your herbs.”
“I’d be most grateful if you would.” Nevyn made her a bow. “Tell her I have perfumes and hair rinses and suchlike as well as medicine.”
Although Cadda’s eyes lit up at the thought, Aderyn grabbed Nevyn’s shirt and dragged him firmly off to the great hall, where Gweran the bard was drinking at Lord Maroic’s table. A solid-looking man in his thirties, with blond hair and a long blond mustache, Gweran rose to greet his son and this stranger. Nevyn got his second shock in as many days—Blaen! All at once Nevyn wondered about Aderyn’s mother. Oh, ye gods! he thought. Brangwen can’t be married to another man! But even as he thought it, he had the uneasy feeling that the Lords of Wyrd were laughing at him.
While Aderyn chattered out his request, Gweran listened with a pleasant smile.
“Very well,” he said. “If it’s truly all right with you, good sir.”
“It is. Your son’s remarkably bright, good bard. I always enjoy teaching someone a bit about herbs.”
After an afternoon gathering yellow dock, feverfew, and mallow in the abandoned fields, Nevyn took Aderyn back to the dun, then returned to his hut. He trimmed up the plants, cut off the useless parts, and laid the leaves and stalks out carefully on clean cloth to begin drying. As he worked, his mind ran restlessly of its own accord: Blaen and Ysolla here together. He had never expected to see the other actors in his and Brangwen’s tragedy again. It was ominous, troubling, making him wonder if his burden of Wyrd was heavier than he’d ever dreamt. So many lives were ruined along with hers, he thought, and all because of me and Gerraent. He decided that tomorrow he’d take his wares up to the dun and get a look at this bard’s woman. Until then, he put the matter firmly out of his mind. He had other work to do.
Just at sunset, Nevyn left the farm and went down to the riverbank, where he found an ash tree and sat down under its spreading branches to watch the river. A sluggish, sullen flow, bloody tinged in the last of the sunset, the river was weak even on the inner planes. Using the second sight, Nevyn could see how its raw elemental force ran tangled. Permeating, interpenetrating, and surrounding the world men call real are other worlds, or states of being, or even forces, if you would call them that. The dweomer calls them planes, knows their dwellers, studies their forces, and has ways to see them and to know that they’re as real as the only world most people can see. That the human mind is the gate between the planes is a safe secret to tell, because it takes years of study and work before the gate will open, years that impatient fools won’t spend to learn secrets they shouldn’t have.
One of these planes, the etheric, is the root of the elementals (what men call the Wildfolk), the source of natural forces and the web that holds every living creature’s soul. Within or beyond that plane is a locus of force that the dweomer terms the Wildlands, and more of the human mind is rooted there than people would like to admit. To see what was troubling the river, Nevyn built himself a gate to the Wildlands. He let his breathing slow until he felt rooted to the earth. The air flowed in and out of his lungs; before him was the water, with the last fire of the sun glinting upon it. His mind was the fifth element, reconciling the four. Slowly, carefully, he built up in his mind an image, a pale blue glowing five-pointed star, its single point upright as is holy. After all his long years of work, it took little effort to make the star flame and live apart from his will. He moved the image out of his mind until it seemed to stand flaming on the riverbank.
Inside this traced sigil, he could see the Wildlands opening out blue and misty under a cool sun. He was about to project himself through when the Wildfolk came to him, rushing through the gate in a swirl of half-seen forms. Nevyn felt the rushy tingle of power down his spine as they swept round him and projected raw emotions, trouble, hatred, and pleading with him to help them. The Wildfolk of Air cursed those of Fire and Water alike, while those of Earth were in despair.
“Here, here,” Nevyn said. “I’ll have to speak to your Kings. There’s nothing I can do alone.”
They were gone, racing back to their lands. Although Nevyn considered following, he decided that it would be best to let them bring the message to the Kings first. Slowly he erased the pentacle, drawing the blue light back into himself, then slapped his hand thrice on the earth to end the operation. In the cool night air he felt strong and at peace.
I’ll try again tomorrow night, Nevyn thought. If things are this bad, sooner or later the Kings will accept my aid. Although man is meant to rule the Wildfolk, not worship or placate them, they deserve respect and due courtesy, which Nevyn could offer them as one prince true-born to another. But it would have to be soon if he was going to spare the people of Blaeddbyr a famine. If this drought continued much longer, the crops would be past saving.
Early on the morrow, when the day was still cool, Nevyn returned to the lord’s dun to lay his wares before Lady Cabrylla. She received him in the women’s hall, where her serving women and the maidservants were gathered to see what this traveling peddler had to offer. As he laid out packets of herbs, pomanders, and cosmetic preparations on a table, Nevyn surreptitiously studied each woman in turn. He was just giving up hope when a young matron, her raven-dark hair caught up in an embroidered headscarf, came slipping in a side door and stood on the edge of the crowd. For all her different features and coloring, Nevyn could think of her as no one but his Brangwen.
“There’s our Lyssa,” Lady Cabrylla said comfortably. “Nevyn, this is the bard’s wife.”
Nevyn wondered why he’d ever been so stupid as to think his Wyrd would work out cleanly. He bowed over Lyssa’s hand and mumbled some pleasantry, which she returned. As their eyes met, she recognized him. He could see a sudden flash of joy in her dark blue eyes, then a bewilderment, as she doubtless wondered why she was so pleased to see this old man. That flash of joy was so much more than Nevyn had believed possible that for the joy of seeing her again, he was willing to endure the harshest of Wyrds.
The horse sacrifice took place out in the sacred oak grove at the edge of the village. On the appointed day, just before sunset, the villagers and the lord’s household formed a ragged procession by the village well. Lord Maroic knelt before Obyn the high priest and handed over the reins of a splendid white stallion. While Obyn held the horse, the young priests decorated the bridle with mistletoe. When they began to chant, the horse tossed its head and snorted, feeling its strange Wyrd like a rider on its back. To the slow pace of the chanting, Obyn led the horse away. Lord Maroic scrambled up and fell in behind, with the rest of the crowd following him. The procession wound through the grove, filled with long pillars of golden sunlight, and came to the altar deep within. Unlike that in the temple, this altar was a rough slab of barely worked stone. Wood for a large fire lay ready upon it.
While Obyn held the horse, the young priests came forward, struck flint on steel, and lit the kindling. Obyn watched narrow eyed: if the fire caught poorly, the day was cursed, and the sacrifice would have to be postponed. As the flames danced up bright and strong, the crowd sank to its knees.
Gweran took the chance to move well back to the edge. Since he had Aderyn with him, he wanted to be a good distance away when the horse met its Wyrd. As the chanting droned on, Aderyn twisted round to look over the crowd. Men on one side, women and tiny children oil the other, everyone who lived within twenty miles was here to beg the god to spare their crops. When Gweran looked over the women, he saw Lyssa and Cadda well to the back, Cadda with a scarf ready to hide her eyes. Acern was asleep in his mother’s lap. The chanting grew faster and louder as the flames rose high.
“Da?” Aderyn whispered. “This is a waste of a good horse.”
“Hush. Don’t talk at rituals.”
“But nothing’s going to happen till the full moon.”
When Gweran threatened a slap, Aderyn fell silent. A young priest took the nervous horses reins from Obyn, who stepped in front of the altar, raised his arms high into the air, and bega
n to beg the god for mercy, his voice rising and quickening, faster and faster, until he cried out in a great sob of supplication. A priest blew on a brass horn, a rasping ancient cry down from the Dawntime. Then silence. Obyn took a bronze sickle from his belt and approached the horse, who tossed up its head in terror. When the brass horn blared, the horse pulled back, but the bronze sickle swung bright in the firelight. The horse screamed, staggering, blood gushing, and sank dying to its knees.
Aderyn began to sob aloud. Gweran threw his arms around him, pulled him into his lap, and let the child bury his face against his father’s shirt. He was wise to hide his eyes as the priests began dismembering the horse with long bronze knives. From his bard-lore, Gweran knew that in the Dawntime, the victim would have been a man, and that this horse represented the god’s growing mercy to his people, but the knowledge would have been no comfort to his tender-hearted Aderyn. The horns blew again as the priests worked, their arms bloody to the elbows.
At last Obyn cut a strip of bleeding meat and wrapped it in thick fat from the horse’s thigh. With a long wailing chant, he laid the sacrifice in the midst of the flames. The fat sputtered and caught, flaring up with a smoky halo.
“Great Bel,” Obyn cried. “Have mercy.”
“Have mercy,” the crowd sighed.
The young priest blew a great blare on the horn.
The rite ended soon after. Since Aderyn was weeping as if his heart would break, Gweran picked him up and carried him as he looked desperately around for Lyssa in the scattering crowd. Instead he found Nevyn, who was leaning against a tree and watching the flame-lit altar with a sour smile.
“Oh, here, here, Addo,” Nevyn said, the smile disappearing. “It’s all over now. It’s a pity, sure enough, but the poor beast is dead and beyond suffering.”
“They shouldn’t have,” Aderyn sobbed. “It won’t even do any good.”
“It won’t. But what’s done is done, and you’d best not talk of it right here, where the people can hear you. They need to think it will help.”