Andre Norton: Horn Crown

Now Wavent pushed forward with his right foot a basin of bronze which Laudet had set out for him. The Captain stooped and picked this up, holding it with both hands.

“Here, Lords of Hallack,” his voice becoming more formal, as if speaking ritual words, “are your choices by lot. In the Light of the One Flame are all kin-chiefs equal. Thus it was in the past, so shall it be here. Let each of you now draw by chance, for at midmorning tomorrow we shall reach the first of the open dales and one of you may there withdraw from our journey to take up a new home.”

Holding the bowl just above the eye level of the circle of lords, he then passed from right to left, pausing before each man who reached up, scrabbling fingers among the strips of hide he could not see and bringing out the lot which fortune dealt him, though all knew that afterward there could be changes made if both parties agreed.

Ouse let Wavent come well along before he followed with a smaller bowl, this one being of silver somewhat tarnished, which he offered to a handful of lords who had refused the first choosing. This we knew represented the chances of the seacoast. As he had told us he would, Garn refrained from drawing from Wavent’s bowl, a happening which appeared to make his near neighbors glance at him in surprise. When Ouse reached him his hand went up forthwith and there was something of eagerness in his action though no emotion showed on his impassive face.

None looked yet upon their luck but waited until all had drawn. There were some slips left in Wavent’s bowl but Ouse, though he had few takers, turned his upside down before he was well around the circle and went back to his own place.

It was only when Wavent also returned to stand by the fire that each lord unrolled the scrap of hide his groping fingers had brought him and looked down at the runes marked there—for the Sword Brothers, together with the Bards, had made these for guidance even before we had come through the Gate, and each carried clear directions for travelers and settlers.

We were eager to know Garn’s luck, though he did not turn to show his drawing to his kin as many of the lords were doing. The hum of talk arose and already there were those who bargained for exchange, some wanting more pasturage, others more land for crops. We waited with what patience we could summon until at last Garn did speak: “The Flame has favored us. We have the river land.”

It was a piece of fortune such as men seldom come across. That he should have drawn the very land he had marked down for his own seemed almost too well done, as if fortune (which is always undependable) had been this time reinforced by a more powerful ally.

I saw one of the Sword Brothers coming through the shadows beyond the inner circle to which the fire gave light. It was Quaine, he who had first told our lord of this possible holding. Now he joined Garn and asked: “What luck, my lord?”

Garn had arisen, the piece of hide stretched taut between his two hands. He favored Quaine with one of those piercing, near accusing glances by which he was able to reduce any man to instant acknowledgment of his orders. Yet Quaine was not of his meiny or kin, but stood easily as if he spoke but of pleasant weather.

Quaine was Wavent’s age, and he had been Captain in the last Ten Time. He was, I thought, near Garn’s own years, though there was no gray in his hair and his body was slim as any youth’s. He walked with the grace of a fighting man who was well trained in the most skillful of swordplay.

“I have it,” Garn returned shortly in answer to the question. “It is yet a long journey.” He made no question of that, still he continued to look at Quaine as if he waited for some other and more important word from the Sword Brother.

Quaine made no comment and Garn glanced now from him into the flames beyond. He was a man whose thoughts one could never read, though at that moment I wondered if he were not as well pleased with the result of the drawing as he might have us believe. I held to a small shred of doubt that this fortune came to him by luck alone, although neither Wavent nor Ouse would have lent himself to any arrangement of favor for even the greatest lord among us, and Garn was one of the least of that company when it came to wealth or ranks of kin.

“It is best,” Quaine continued, “that those for the shore take trail together. There is another road leading east and then north, but it is much older and it may prove difficult passage. If you ride together then there is aid at hand should any accident occur.”

Garn nodded sharply, thrusting his drawing into his belt pouch. Then he only spoke four names, making a question of them: “Siwen, Uric, Farkon, and Dawuan?”

“Also Milos and Tugness,” Quaine added.

Now Garn did stare at him, while I let hand go to sword hilt without my realizing what I did until my fingers crooked hard about the metal. We might have had old memories erased as we passed the Gate, but there were some which lingered. Among the Lords, Tugness was no friend to any of Garn’s household. It was an old feud which had meant bloodletting once, but now it was only that we did not friend-visit with them at any season nor come to a hosting in which they had a part.

Again Garn made his question curt: “Where?”

Quaine shrugged. “I have not asked. Yours lies farthest north—the last dale we rode across in our quartering. Doubtless he will settle south of that.”

“Well enough.”

“We turn from the road near sunset,” Quaine continued. “I will lead the Brothers for the sea party.”

Garn nodded, giving no farewell, as he turned on his heel and, with the rest of us, tramped back to our own camp which was some little distance from the council place, saying nothing to us.

Though I was well tired by the journeying of the day—the everlasting matching of our pace to the slow turn of wain wheels—yet as I drew my cloak about me and used my saddle pad as a pillow, I did not at once fall asleep. One could hear the small sounds of the camp. A child was crying in a weak, fretting way where the women sheltered—probably Stig’s grandson who ailed. I could hear, too, the movements of our stock as they grazed the tough, thick grass already well above the earth’s edge for spring, and now and then the snort of a sleeper or a snore. Garn had gone into the small tent which was his alone. From where I lay I could see the spark of a strike light and then the thin gleam of a lantern candle. Perhaps he was again studying the lot fortune had given him.

I had thought fortune too favoring and been wary, then I had heard of Tugncss’s luck and believed that this was the ill part which I had sought to find. If our future holding marched with his we must learn to live in a state better than an uneasy truce. This was an unknown land from whence the former inhabitants had withdrawn—the why we did not know. Though the Bards and the Scouts had stressed that there were no enemies, still there was a loneliness, a kind of withdrawal, which I, for one, felt the farther I rode. We might well need to depend on neighbors even if such lived a day’s journey away. This would be the time when all men of Hallack must stand together, old quarrels and enmities forgotten.

This was not Hallack—that lay behind, lost forever. Those of our company had come to call it High Hallack, since it was a country of many hills. This it would be named in bardic memory from the hour we crossed into it.

Still sleep did not come, though the lantern candle winked out. I turned my head to look up into the night, seeking stars I knew. Then there was a coldness which crept across me, roughened my skin, and brought a prickling beneath my hair. For none of those groupings of stars was what I had known all my life. Where was the Arrow, the Bull, the Hunter’s Horn? There was no tracing of any such to be seen.