Andre Norton: The Jargoon Pard

Then he hesitated so long I was moved to spur him on.

“What mean you by halfling son, Pergvin?”

“It was in the long ago when the Lady Eldris was but a young maid. There was a love-spell laid upon her and she answered it—”

He had truly astounded me now. The Lady Eldris was as long lived as all our blood and years counted for little in our aging. But to me, she was a stern forbidding dame with nothing lightsome about her. To think of her drawn by that fabled spell, a love-call, was the same as saying that one fine spring morning the west Tower freed its stones from the earth and danced a planting frolic.

I think Pergvin read my incredulous reception of the confidence in my countenance, for this time his tone was a little drier and sharper.

“All of us were young once, Lord Kethan. There will come doubtless a day when you shall remember and another be startled at your words. Yes, the Lady Eldris went as she was called. But it was not a man of our Clans who laid the spell upon her.

“Those were the days of the Last Struggle, and there was a gathering of Clans and others who were then our allies to determine defenses and ploys against the Dark Lord of Ragaard the Less. Since all who answered the summons needs must leave their Keeps but lightly defended if they were to join such a gathering, the women and children were taken to the Clan fortresses for shelter—those who agreed. For as you know, there were ladies then who rode in armor and led levies from their own lands.

“While at the Fortress of the Redmantle, the Lady Eldris was seen and desired by one of the Wereriders—a lord among them. It was he who laid the spell that brought her to his bed. But his spell did not last, and no real liking came of their meeting on her part. So that in time she returned to her own people bringing with her their young son—

“It is said that when she left, her Werelord and his Clan were elsewhere, for they were always in the midst of the bitterest fighting, they being what they were born to be. And, by the time he got note of her going, it was too late for him to claim her again.

“Her brother, Lord Kardis (he who fell some years later at the Battle of Thos), gave back freely her Clan right and laid it also on her son. However, as the boy grew older he showed the blood of his father the stronger. At last he went to Gray Towers where he could find cup-fellows and shield-companions of his own kind. Then later, when the Seven Lords won peace, those of the Werefolk were sent into exile, for their blood is ever hot and they take not easily to a world without war. It was only a few short seasons ago they returned to Arvon from far wandering. But I do not think that any old sorrow binds the Lady Eldris. She later took the Lord Erach’s father to husband and bore both him and your Lady Mother. Thus perhaps time faded all that lay behind. But it is true that her elder son did dwell here in his early youth, and that those weapons were his. However, all this is now a matter best forgot, my Lord.”

“Wererider—” I repeated, wishing I dared ask more about that unknown half uncle of mine from the past. Only it was plain that Pergvin would not talk more about him.

There are many strange folk in Arvon. We are not all of one kind or nature. Some are very different indeed when we compare them to ourselves. Of that number not a few are dangerous enough so that those of the Clans avoid them and their territories. There are those totally unlike us as to body and mind, others that mingle within their natures both that which is like unto us and that which is strange beyond our understanding, a third kind that are both different and enemies to our ways.

Yet it is not any physical difference alone that raises barriers between one sort and another, but rather spirits that cannot meet. I have seen the forest people come freely to our sowing feasts, our Harvest festivals. These we welcome, though they are closer to the plant world than to ours. Also I have seen some with the outward seeming of the Clansmen from whom I shrank as if from a blast of winter’s strongest cold.

A Wererider, like the forest people, possesses a mixture of inheritance, being sometimes man, sometimes animal. I had come across divers references to such shape-changes in the Chronicles Ursilla had supplied, but at the time I had had little interest to them. Now, because of Pergvin’s story, I wished that I had paid more heed to those old hints. For the tale of the Wereson who had used these weapons before me awoke a desire to know more. Had he also in those days felt between him and all others here the same invisible barrier that fed my growing loneliness?

Lonely I was, and turned inward upon my own thoughts more and more. Had it not been for Pergvin I would have fared even worse. But he companied me under the guise of teaching me a warrior’s ways. And, as the seasons passed, he took me on small journeys out from the Keep so that I learned more than just the fields and lands I could see in half a day’s riding. I knew though, that in this he was hampered by the rules of my mother, who would never allow me to spend a night away from the Keep.

I was still summoned to the Great Hall whenever court was held there—now sitting behind my uncle, as I had behind my mother. While Lord Erach was just to me after a fashion, he did not extend to me any great kindness. The fact that I could not hunt, that horse and hound hated me, gave him worry, I know. He went as far as to consult with Ursilla on the matter. What answer she made him I never learned. But the meeting led to a greater coolness in him toward me that was a source of unhappiness to me.

Maughus did not bully me openly as he had when I was a child, though he never lost any opportunity to point out my inability to fit neatly into the right pattern of Keep life. Often I found him watching me in such a way as to arouse within me an anger that was partly fear—not truly fear of Maughus himself, but of some formless thing that he might summon in time to my betrayal.

I had passed from boyhood into the time of young manhood when we had an extremely plentiful harvest that overjoyed us all. Yet that was also the Year of the Werewolf, which was an ill sign in every way and which in a measure we dreaded. By rights, this season should have celebrated my wedding to Thaney. Only, under such a sign, Ursilla decided—and Heroise, in spite of her desire to further her plans, backed her—no such uniting could prosper. Thus it was decreed that with the coming of the new year—which lay under the sign of the Horned Cat, a powerful one but such as promised better, the wedding would take place.

Of Thaney I had seen little, since she had gone early to Garth Howel, where the Wise Women gathered, there to learn such sorceries as those of healing and the protection of house and home. It was reported that she showed something of a talent in such matters, which did not, I knew, altogether suit my Lady Mother. Yet, by custom, Heroise could not raise her voice against the furthering of any development of such in her niece.

Maughus was much away also, acting as messenger for his father in various meetings of the Clan or Clans—for all four of the Great Clans were astir.

Arvon itself had passed into a period of unrest which crept upon the land subtly enough. The very names of the years, as they passed, showed that the balance of the Power was a little troubled. For we had behind us such as the Years of the Lamia, the Chimera, the Harpy and the Orc. There were signs that the golden peace of my childhood was fading, though the why of this puzzled all who thought about the matter. And there were embassies sent to the Voices, asking for readings on the future. That this grew cloudier they admitted. Still there was no menace that was openly discernible, upon which men could set their eyes and say—this is what troubles us so.