Andre Norton - The Warding of Witch World

“You are tired.” Simond, having shed his own cape, came to her.

“I am very proud,” she said, and linked her arms about his neck, drawing him as close as she could. “For my lord presented our cause as no one else might have. You do not deal in power and thus you see matters as most of these people do. Their Watcher…” She ended that with a long kiss and savored the good feeling of his touch along her small body.

“Their Watcher…” he said, having marked her chin line and down to her throat with his lips, “you do not like her.”

“I do not know her. But, my lord, this night let us forget all guests and Powers, witches, shamans, and Watchers, and keep some hours for us alone.”

He laughed softly. “Always you are the wise one, my lady. So be it. The Lady’s moon lamp may not shine upon us, but Her grace will fill us.”

In this odd light Trusla did not know how long she slept—for it had certainly been late when, with her head on Simond’s shoulder, she had sunk into the deepest and sweetest sleep she had known for what seemed a very long time.

At first she was puzzled when she opened her eyes. She lay alone on the wide bed and this was certainly not the cabin of the ship with its cramped space. No—she rubbed her eyes—this was a house, or so the people here deemed it—and they had reached port. But this would be only the beginning, and perhaps the easiest portion of their traveling was behind her.

There was a soft rap at the door and, when she answered, one of the women who appeared to fuse Sulcar and alien features came in carrying a pitcher of water from which steam arose.

“Your lord said you were greatly wearied, but now it is the noon time for eating.” She was pouring a portion of the water into a basin, laying out a coarse strip of weaving as a towel.

“I am indeed a lazy slugabed.” Trusla laughed and hurried to wash. Then she hunted out clean underclothing, even if it was sadly wrinkled, and she felt at ease as she came to join the others at the Trade Master’s hall.

For the first time she saw Audha among that company. Youth seemed to have been drawn out of the wavereader’s face. Her jaw was set and she gazed ahead as if she saw nothing of what was about her. Kankil sat close to her, paw hand on her knee, and In-quit was just beyond, keeping a close eye on the girl.

There was no talk of their mission or the immediate past among those gathered there. Most of the conversation concerned a promising run of flat fish which could be harvested with ease as the predators which followed such schools drove them into the shallows.

Once pulled out of the sea, they were quickly prepared and put on smoking frames—a harvest which would help the trading station survive during the winter to come. In addition there was some excitement over a report brought in by a young hunter that some of the great horns had been sighted not too far away.

There were also comments on the possible luck of the back-country trackers, those who mined the ice streams, and those driving the horses to summer pasturage. Trusla had already seen those small beasts which seemed to be the only domesticated animals those of this Border settlement had.

In general appearance they were horses right enough, but far removed from even the hill ponies of the south, being hardly larger then the great hounds some of the Dales lords and noblemen of Karstan kept for boar hunting or to beat off attacks from the vicious Gray Ones. Their coats were shaggy in rough patches, as they were shedding the thick hair which covered them in winter, and they were gaunt. No one larger than Kankil could hope to mount one, and they were used for packing alone.

A woman near Trusla, as she sat to accept a ship biscuit coated with a tart-sweet jam, was discussing with a friend the fact that several of the small beasts had been returned lately with injured hooves, needing special attention, and that she hoped there would not be an epidemic of such to curtail the summer work.

However, Trusla’s attention kept returning to Audha. Though Trusla had tended the girl on shipboard, the wavereader’s eyes had passed over her with no sign of recognition and the Estcarpian sensed that Inquit, too, was disturbed by her aloofness.

Those gathered here—mainly, Trusla believed, to give reports of one or another of the towns activities—began to drift out again. There was no sign of Captain Stymir, but Frost was settled among the cushions a little away from the others. She had smiled and nodded to Trusla, yet about her was an aura of waiting—though if she were truly impatient she kept the signs of that hidden.

Simond appeared in the doorway, gave lordship hand greeting to the Trade Master, and bowed to the others. He was quickly followed by Odanki, the Latt taking a place against the wall, leaning a little on his harpoonlike spear.

The Trade Master clapped his hands. At that signal three more of the people gathered there got to their feet and left. The master of the Sulcar town now held between his knees a small drum, not unlike, Trusla thought, that which she had seen carried for the wisewoman in Korinth.

With the very tips of his big fingers he tapped out a series of small raps and there followed silence. Only Audha turned her head, as if aroused for the first time out of some deep well of thought, to look at him searchingly.

Three times the Trade Master used that signal and as the sound of the last beat died away, the Watcher came. At first Trusla thought she was wearing a mask and then realized that those splashes of color were paint, so arranged as to make the woman’s features no longer human in appearance but rather like some dream thing.

The Trade Master placed the drum on the floor now, and Svan went to her knees before it.

“The moon is not lit.” There was ice in that.

“Neither is your Power hidden by day,” he answered her levelly. “Do you say that you control less in the way of forces than this lady witch or this shaman and dreamer of the Latts?”

There was conflict here; Trusla could feel the tension. No one questioned the abilities of a talented one unless it was in the form of a challenge. Yet this Sulcar was goading his own Watcher.

“So be it.” Svan shrugged slightly. Her head swung slowly so that she eyed each gathered there. “The reading will be of your demanding. Now…” she had slipped out of her sleeve a short, slender knife and held it to the Trade Master.

He applied the needle tip of that to his forefinger and a drop of blood answered. Then he shook his hand so that it spattered down upon the surface of the drum.

“Let those who search now pay,” she said stiffly.

Inquit reached for the knife and followed the Trade Master’s example, squatting forward so her blood drop also landed on the drum top. She passed the blade to Simond.

He shucked off the gauntlets he had been wearing and prepared to draw blood. Trusla half raised her hand. She knew nothing of the nature of the Watchers power. Would this act lock them to the will of the Sulcar wisewoman? Simond had no talent shield to stand between him and such usage.

Svan looked beyond Simond to her, and the heavily painted face seemed to express something which was beyond the girl to understand.

“You are already bound to this mission; for the runes all blood must be read,” she said.

Trusla caught a glimpse of Frost and the witch was nodding encouragingly, so she did not protest Simond’s contribution to the drum and made her own. However, the Watcher did not look to Frost. Perhaps this was a matter of Power so alien that one could cancel out the other—of such she had heard.

But another moved, and before Trusla could return the knife, it was snatched from her hold and Audha stood beside the drum.