David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

A wren hung upside down on the trunk of a dogwood, singing with the loud determination of his kind. Other birds sing and maybe sing to you, but there was never any doubt that a wren was singingat the whole world. They were smart, talented little birds, pretty though without the flashy colors that got the attention; and they were also just as hard as the cracked boulder in which the dogwood tree had rooted.

Cashel smiled. Wrens reminded him of his sister Ilna.

He paused beside the boulder. The ewe stopped also. For a moment she stared at Cashel with one eye, then the other. At last she lowered her head and began to graze.

From here Cashel could look out over the island's east shore, the same view across the Inner Sea that he'd had from the pasture south of Barca's Hamlet. Ships were drawn up all along the beach below. Soldiers were setting up camp like ants scrambling to rebuild the hill an ox had trod on.

There was no end of ruins, houses fallen into rock piles and overgrown with brush. They'd been built with fancy stones, some of them, pinks and greens and yellows that showed through the alders and euonymus if you knew how to look. They were all knocked down, now. Sails for tarpaulins spread up and down the shore to shelter the soldiers and sailors from the forest of ships.

The ewe suddenly turned and bolted, her jaws still working with the sidewise rolling motion sheep and cows too used to grind up their food. Cashel heard the scrunch of boots to his right and leaned around the corner of the boulder to see.

A soldier was walking up the slope. There was no doubt what he was from the hobnailed boots, but he was using his spear, the only piece of equipment he carried, as a walking stick the way Cashel did his quarterstaff.

"Hello there," Cashel said, stepping into full sight so it wouldn't look like he was hiding behind the boulder. The soldier was a sturdy fellow, built like Cashel though on a smaller scale. His face and forearms were wind-burned, and there was a dent across his forehead where his helmet would rest.

"Hello yourself," the soldier said, looking startled. Cashel guessed the fellow was four or five years older than his own 19, though he'd noticed time in the army could do different things from ordinary life. "That your sheep?"

"No," said Cashel. "I'm a stranger here myself."

He heard the challenge in the other man's tone, but he wasn't going to let it put him out. Cashel felt cramped and uncomfortable on shipboard, and he knew that the common soldiers were packed in a good deal tighter than Garric and his friends were.

"Because if she is, she's got a stye on her left eye that oughta be taken care of," the soldier said.

"I noticed that," said Cashel patiently. "I figured the regular shepherd went to the mainland when the ships came, so I was going to drain it for him. I still will, when I get close to her again."

The fellow'd come up so they were both standing on the same stretch of level ground. He was a hand's breadth shorter than Cashel and probably that much narrower across the shoulders, but he was a husky man by most standards.

"Leggy devil, ain't she?" the soldier said, looking in the direction the ewe'd run off. "Putting horse legs on a sheep just wastes good feed that could go to wool and mutton."

"You'd be from Ornifal, then?" Cashel said. Ornifal sheep were short-legged butterballs, all right for flat meadows but nothing he'd have wanted to watch on the slopes of the borough. They went to market by water, he'd heard, because you couldn't drive them ten miles in a day.

"Aye, I am," the soldier said in surprise. "You know sheep, then, master?"

"Aye," Cashel said, not bragging exactly but letting his spreading smile tell the other fellow that he could've said a good deal more on the subject and not told a lie. "I'm from Haft, myself."

"Ah," said the soldier. "I've seen Haft sheep. They're three colors all on the same animal, ain't they?"

"That's so," Cashel agreed. "And a finer, softer fleece you couldn't hope to find."

The soldier hawked and spit. "Well, there's tastes and tastes," he said. "My name's Memet or-Meisha."

Memet leaned his spear against the boulder and thrust out his right forearm. Cashel took it, clamping his hand just below Memet's elbow.

"Cashel or-Kenset," he said. "Did they send you up here to find something, Master Memet?"

"No, I'm off-duty," the soldier said. He turned his face away with a frown of embarrassment. "I ought to be sleeping, I guess, I'll have guard duty tonight, but…"

He let his eyes follow the ewe. She'd stopped a few double-paces away and was grazing again. The poor thing's scared, Cashel thought. She'd like to have that stye drained but she's too afraid to come to us.

"I saw the sheep up here, you see," Memet said. "I was a shepherd back in County Hordin, but my mum died and dad and me'd got to where neither of us could say three civil words to the other. I figured I'd go for a soldier and be paid in silver. I'd come back with more money'n anybody else in the county 'cepting the Squire and marry who I pleased. That's what I figured."

"Ah," said Cashel without putting any weight on the word. He leaned against the sun-warmed boulder and used the stone to rub him where he couldn't reach, just the way a sheep would've done. "Most folks think money's a fine thing, or so it seems."

"So I hear," Memet said with a wry smile. "May the Sister strike me if I know where mine goes from one pay parade to the next, though."

He faced his palm out. "I'm not complaining, mind," he said. "I spend it myself, I know that. And if I've got help spending it, well, I pick the ones who help me."

He shook his head at the memory. "There's something about blondes," he said. "We never had blondes in County Hordin except the Squire's lady."

"I miss sheep too, since I've been travelling," Cashel admitted. "You know, if we just wait here a bit, I'll bet she'll come over to us. She must be really scared with the rest of the flock gone off and her left behind."

"Aye, that's so," Memet agreed. He glanced at the rock beside him, then said, "Say, take a look here. What do you figure this is that's carved here?"

Cashel moved around to the soldier's side of the boulder. It was carved, no doubt about that. It looked like the lines'd been touched with ochre, too, though most of the red had been washed away during rainy winters. But what it was A tall triangle, base down. A shorter triangle, base up below the tall one. A round ball, or as round as you can carve even in limestone with simple tools. The work'd probably been done with an iron knife a lot like the one Cashel and every other man in the borough hung from his belt. Lines from the open sides of each triangle, maybe meant for arms and legs.

"We had a stone up in the South Pasture where we offered bread and cheese to Duzi on feast days," Cashel said carefully. "Of course Duzi was just a little god who couldn't help me since I've left the borough. But you know, I still sometimes…"

"There's an oak where we'd hang offerings to Enver," Memet said in the same tone of quiet embarrassment. "I thought of that too."

"You're correct in your assumptions," said a female voice from behind them. Cashel turnedfast and took a step back. That was a mistake because it put him onto the slope. He jabbed his quarterstaff down, digging one ferrule into the soil to keep from falling.

"Shepherds worship the nymph Serkit here," said a woman with tightly-braided black hair and a face like polished ivory. The nails of her right hand were enameled sapphire blue, while those of her left were ruby. "She wards off lightning and protects the flock from scrapie."

Cashel stepped up onto flat ground again, though he kept to the side so he wasn't crowding the lady. She wore the usual two tunics cinched with a sash. They were as lustrous as silk, but Cashel was sure that the fabric was something different. You didn't grow up with Ilna and not learn about cloth.