Katharine Kerr - A Time of Exile

‘You’ll forgive our greeting, but we have great reason to fear these days.’

‘Indeed? Are the men of Eldidd close by?’

‘The despicable blue-eyed ones are always too close by.’

For a moment they contemplated each other in an uneasy silence. Wargal’s eyes flicked back and forth between his folk and the stranger. He had a secret, Aderyn supposed, and he could guess it: the village was sheltering a runaway bondsman.

‘Are there any sick in your village?’ Aderyn said. ‘I have many herbs, and I’ll gladly help anyone who needs them in return for some fresh milk and a night’s shelter.’

‘Any stranger is welcome to milk from my flock. But if you can spare some medicine, one of our women has a bad case of boils.’

The villagers tended Aderyn’s horse and mule while Wargal took him to his own home, which had no furniture except for three big pottery jars near the tiny hearth and the straw mattress he shared with his wife. Hanging on the wall were a few bronze pots, a couple of knives of the same metal, and some rough cloth sacks. Aderyn sat down next to Wargal in the place of honour by the hearth while villagers crowded in for a look at this amazing event, a stranger in their village. After some polite conversation over bowls of goat’s milk, the woman with the boils was duly treated in the midst of the curious crowd. Other villagers came forward to look over the herbs and ask shy questions, but most were beyond his help, because the real plague in this village was malnutrition. Driven by fear of the Eldidd lords, they eked out a miserable living on land so poor that no one else wanted it.

Although Aderyn would have preferred to eat his own food and spare theirs, Wargal insisted that he join him and his wife in their dinner of goat’s milk cheese and thin cracker-bread.

‘I’m surprised you don’t have your winter crops in yet,’ Aderyn remarked.

‘Well, we won’t be here to harvest them. We had a long council a few days ago, and we’re going to move north. The cursed Blue Eyes get closer every day. What if one of their head men decides to build one of those forts along the road?’

‘And decides you should be slaves to farm for him? Leaving’s the wise thing to do.’

‘There’s plenty of open land farther north, I suppose. Ah, it’s so hard to leave the pastures of your ancestors! There’s a god in the spring nearby, too, and I only hope he won’t be angry with us for leaving him.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘We thought of leaving last spring, but it was too much of a wrench, especially for the women. Now we have another reason.’

‘Indeed?’

Wargal considered him, studying Aderyn’s face in the flickering firelight.

‘You seem like a good man,’ Wargal said at last. ‘I don’t suppose you have any herbs to take a brand off a man’s face?’

‘I only wish I did. If you’re harbouring a runaway, you’d best move fast in case his lord comes looking for him.’

‘So I told the others. We were thinking of packing tomorrow.’ Wargal glanced around the hut. ‘We don’t have much to pack or much to lose by leaving – well, except the god in the spring, of course.’

Aderyn felt a sudden cold shudder of dweomer down his back. His words burned in his mouth, an undeniable warning that forced itself into sound.

‘You must leave tomorrow. Please, believe me – I have magic, and you must leave tomorrow and travel as fast as you can. I’ll come with you on the road a-ways.’

His face pale, Wargal stared at him, then crossed two fingers to ward off the evil eye, in case Aderyn had that, too.

On the morrow leaving took far longer than Aderyn wanted. Although the village’s few possessions were easily packed onto bovine and human backs, the goats had to be rounded up. Finally a ragged group of refugees, about eight families with some twenty children among them, the cows, the herd of goats, and six little brown dogs to keep the stock in line, went to the holy spring and made one last sacrifice of cheese to the god while Aderyn kept a fretful watch on the path behind them. By the time they moved out of the valley, it was well after noon, and the smaller children were already tired and crying from the smell of trouble in the air. Aderyn piled the littlest ones into his saddle and walked, leading the horse. Wargal and a young man, Ibretin, fell in beside him. On Ibretin’s cheek was the brand that marked him as a lord’s property.

‘If you think they’ll catch us, O Wise One,’ Ibretin said to Aderyn, ‘I’ll go back and let them kill me. If they find us they’ll take the whole tribe back with them.’

‘There’s no need for that yet,’ Wargal snapped.

‘There never will be if I can help it,’ Aderyn said. ‘I’d be twice cursed before I’ll let a man be killed for taking the freedom that the gods gave him. I think my magic might make us harder to find.’

Both men smiled, reassured by Aderyn’s lie. Although he could control his aura well enough to pass unnoticed and thus practically invisible, Aderyn couldn’t make an entire village disappear.

For two days they went north, keeping to the rolling hills and making a bare twelve miles a day. The more Aderyn opened his mind to the omens, the more clearly he knew that they were being pursued. On the third night, he scried into a campfire and saw the ruins of the old village, burnt to the ground. Only a lord’s warband would have destroyed it, and that warband would have to be blind to miss the trail of so many goats and people. He left the campfire and went to look for Ibretin, who was taking his turn at watching the goats out in the pasture.

‘You’ve called me Wise One. Do you truly think I have magic?’

‘I can only hope so. Wargal thinks so.’

It was too dark under the starry sky to see Ibretin’s face. Aderyn raised his hand and made the blue light gather in his fingers like a cool-burning torch. Ibretin gasped aloud and stepped back.

‘Now you know instead of hoping. Listen, the men chasing you are close by. Sooner or later, they’ll catch us. You offered to die to save your friends. How about helping me with a little scheme instead?’

At dawn on the morrow, while Wargal rounded up the villagers and got them moving north, Aderyn and Ibretin headed south. Although Aderyn rode, he had Ibretin walk, leading his pack-mule as if they’d been travelling together for some time as servant and master. About an hour’s ride brought them to the inevitable warband. They were just breaking their night’s camp, the horses saddled and ready to ride, the men standing idly around waiting for their lord’s orders. The lord himself, a tall young man in blue and grey plaid brigga, with oak leaves embroidered as a blazon on his shirt, was kicking dirt over a dying campfire. When Aderyn and Ibretin came up, the men shouted, running to gather round them. Aderyn could see Ibretin shaking in terror.

‘Oh, here,’ a man called out. ‘This pedlar’s found our flown chicken! Lord Degedd will reward you for this, my friend.’

‘Indeed?’ Aderyn said. ‘Well, I’m not sure I want a reward.’

With a signal to Ibretin to stay well back, Aderyn swung down from his horse just as Degedd came pushing his way through his men. Aderyn made a bow to him, which the lord acknowledged with a brief nod.

I’ve indeed found your runaway bondsman, but I want to buy him from you, my lord. He’s a useful man with a mule, and I need a servant.’

Caught utterly off-guard, Degedd stared for a moment, then blinked and rubbed his chin with his hand.

‘I’m not sure I want to sell. I’d rather have the fun of taking the skin off his cursed back.’

‘That would be a most unwise pleasure.’

‘And who are you to tell me what to do?’