David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

In order to stay alive, he’d have to travel secretly at night, as best he could, never risking contact with the Inkarrans.

He said, “I can’t take you. You would slow me down, get us both killed.”

“I don’t like this,” Myrrima said. “I don’t like the idea of your going off alone.” A vendor pulling a handcart moved close, and Myrrima stepped from his path, dragging Borenson with her.

“Neither do I, but you can’t believe for a moment that you could help me.”

Myrrima shook her head, and a tear splashed down her cheek. “I told you about my father,” she said. He’d been a fairly wealthy merchant who had apparently been robbed and killed and then had his shop burned down around him to cover the crime. “I sometimes wonder if I could have saved him. On the night he was killed, he was not the wealthiest merchant in Bannisferre, or the most feeble. But he was alone. Perhaps if I had been with him...”

“If you had been with him, you too might be dead,” Borenson said.

“Perhaps,” she Whispered. “But sometimes I think I’d rather be dead than live without knowing if I could have been of help.” Borenson stared hard at her. “I admire your loyalty, I cherish it. But the worst day of my life came last week when I learned that you had ridden to Longmot, hoping to join me in battle. I want you to sleep by my side, not fight by my side—even though you have a warrior’s heart.” He kissed her tenderly.

For just a moment their eyes met. She held his outstretched hand. A plea.

“If I cannot come with you,” she said, “I will not be happy until you return.”

Borenson smiled and leaned his forehead against hers, kissed her nose. “Let us agree, then. Neither of us will be happy until I return.”

He held her for a long moment, letting the crowd of peasants heading for the castle stroll past.

Behind her, she heard a couple of men talking. “Chose that whore Bonny Cleads, he did, not half an hour ago! Why would the Earth King Choose someone like her?”

“He says he Chooses those what love their fellow men,” a fellow said, “and I don’t know of no one that’s loved more of ’em than she.”

Myrrima felt Borenson stiffen in her arms as his attention focused on the peasants. Though he bridled to hear such criticism of the King, he did not challenge the men.

Myrrima heard a shout and a splash, as if someone had thrown something into the moat, but paid it no mind until Borenson pulled his head back from her and turned away.

She looked to see what had caught his eye. Four young men stood on the levee, looking down into the moat, about a hundred yards upstream. They were perched on a small rise, beneath an enormous willow.

The sun was bright and the skies clear. An early morning mist rose off the dark waters. As Myrrima watched, a huge fish came up to the surface of the moat and swam about lazily. One boy hurled a spear at it, but the fish darted nimbly forward and dove again.

“Hey,” Borenson shouted as if angry. “What are you boys doing?”

One lad, a thin boy with straw for hair and a triangle for a face, said, “Catching a sturgeon for Hostenfest. Some big ones swam into the moat this morning.”

Even as he spoke, an enormous fish some six or eight feet long rose to the surface and began finning, whirling about in strange patterns. It ignored a duckling that nosed about in some nearby reeds. The huge fish did not seem to be hunting for a meal. One lad readied a spear.

“Stop—in the name of the King!” Borenson commanded. Myrrima had to smile to hear him appropriate the name of the King.

The spear-bearing lad looked at Borenson as if he were mad. “But never has such a huge fish swum into the moat,” he said.

“Go get the King—now!” Borenson commanded. “And the wizard Binnesman, too! Tell them it’s urgent, that there are some exceeding strange fish in the moat.” The boy looked longingly at the sturgeon, spear poised at his shoulder. “Do it now!” Borenson roared. “Or, I swear I’ll gut you where you stand.”

The boy glanced back and forth between Borenson and the fish, then threw down his spear and ran for the castle.

By the time. Gaborn reached the moat, holding hands with his wife Iome while the wizard Binnesman walked behind, a great crowd of peasants had gathered at its banks. They seemed both perplexed and angry to have a knight standing there protecting the enormous sturgeons that swam not twenty feet from shore. There was much grumbling about how the fish were “good enough for the King’s belly, but not for ours.”

Borenson had been gathering information about the fish for several minutes. Nine sturgeons had been spotted at dawn, swimming into the moat from the Wye River. Now all nine fish finned at the surface, just outside the castle wall, performing a strange and sinuous dance.

Iome came and stood with Myrrima, smiling radiantly to have her husband home. Gaborn’s and Iome’s Days followed at their backs.

“You look well,” Myrrima said. “In fact, you are glowing.” It was true.

Iome only smiled at the remark. In the past few days, Iome had invited Myrrima to dine with her at every meal, as if Myrrima were some woman born to the court. Myrrima felt odd and apprehensive about such behavior, as if she were merely pretending to be a gentleman’s wife, though Iome seemed in every respect to be genuinely pleased by Myrrima’s company.

Iome’s Maid of Honor, Chemoise, had departed this week to an uncle’s holding in the north. For six years, Iome and Chemoise had been constant companions. But now that Iome was married, she no longer required a Maid of Honor to constantly remain in her presence. Still, Myrrima wondered if Iome craved a woman’s company. Certainly Iome had sought to befriend her easily enough.

Iome kissed Myrrima’s cheek and smiled in greeting. “You look well, too. What is the excitement all about?”

“Big fish, I guess,” Myrrima said. “I think our lords and knights are all still boys at heart.”

“Indeed, our husbands are acting oddly today,” Iome said, and Myrrima merely laughed, for both of them had been married only four days past, and neither she nor Iome were used to speaking of “our husbands.”

In moments young King Orden knelt beside the moat, a dark-haired, blue-eyed young man squinting into the depths beside the pink water lilies. The Earth Warden Binnesman followed, wearing his wizard’s robes in shades of scarlet and russet.

When Gaborn saw the fish, he stared in frank amazement, then sat down on his haunches, watching the fish as they wheeled and dove.

“Water wizards?” Gaborn asked. “Here in the moat?”

“That’s what it looks like,” Borenson said.

“What do you mean, ‘water wizards’?” Iome asked Gaborn. “They’re fish.”

The Earth Warden Binnesman gave Iome a patient look as he stroked his grizzled beard. “Don’t assume that one must be human to be a wizard. The Powers often favor beasts. Harts and foxes and bears often learn a few magical spells to help them hide in the woods or walk quietly. And these fish look as if they are quite powerful.”

Gaborn beamed at Iome. “You asked me just the other day if my father had brought any water wizards for our betrothal, and now Heredon surprises me with a few of its own.”

Iome grinned like a child and squeezed Myrrima’s hand.

Myrrima stared at the fish, marveling. There were rumors of ancient fish up at the headwaters of the Wye, magical fish that no man could catch. She wondered what they were doing here.

Iome asked, “But even if the Powers do favor them, what good can they do us? We can’t speak to them.”

“Perhaps we cannot communicate well,” Binnesman said. “But Gaborn can listen to them.” Gaborn glanced up at the wizard, as if surprised that the Earth Warden thought him capable of the feat. “Use the Earth Sight,” Binnesman told him. “That’s what it’s for.”