Katharine Kerr - A Time of Exile

Since Aderyn was not very tall, the lord towered over him with six feet of solid muscle. Aderyn set his hands on his hips and looked up at him.

‘Your men called me a pedlar, but I’m nothing of the sort. I’m a herbman, travelling in your country, and one who knows the laws of the gods. Do you care to question me further?’

‘I do. I don’t give a pig’s fart whether you’re a learned man or not, and anyway, for all I know, you lie.’

‘Then let me give you a sample of my learning. Enslaving free men to work your land is an impious thing. The gods have decreed that only criminals and debtors shall be bondsmen. That law held for a thousand years, back in the Homeland, and it held for hundreds here, until greedy men like you chose to break it.’

When his men began muttering, shame-faced among themselves at the truth of the herbman’s words, the lord’s face turned purple with rage. He drew his sword, the steel glittering in the sun.

‘Hold your ugly lying tongue, and give me back that bondsman! Be on your way or die right here, you scholarly swine!’

With a gentle smile, Aderyn raised his hand and called upon the spirits of fire. They came, bursting into manifestation with a roar and crackle of bright flame on the sword blade. Howling, Degedd struggled to hold on to the hilt, then cursed and flung the flesh-branding metal to the ground. Aderyn turned the flames to illusions and swung around, scattering bright but harmless blue fire into the warband. Yelling, shoving each other, they fell back and ran away to let their lord face Aderyn alone.

‘Now then, I’ll give you two copper pieces for him. That’s a generous price, my lord.’

His face dead-white, Degedd tried to speak, failed, then simply nodded his agreement. Aderyn untied his coin pouch and counted the coppers into the lord’s broad but shaking left hand, as the right seemed to pain him.

‘Your chamberlain will doubtless think you’ve made a fine bargain. And of course if you and your men return straight to your lands, there’s no need for anyone to ever hear this tale.’

Degedd forced out a tight sour smile. Doubtless he didn’t care to be mocked in every tavern in Eldidd by the story of how one herbman had bested him on the road, especially since no one would believe that the herbman had done it with magic. With a cheery wave, Aderyn mounted his horse and rode away, with Ibretin and the mule hurrying after. About a mile on, they looked back to see Lord Degedd and his warband trotting fast – away back south. Aderyn tested the dweomer warnings and felt that, indeed, all danger was over. At that he laughed aloud.

‘If nothing else,’ he told Ibretin. ‘That was the best jest I’ve had in a long time.’

Ibretin tried to smile but burst into tears instead. He wept all the way back.

That night there was as much of a celebration in the camp as their meagre provisions would allow. Aderyn sat at the biggest fire with Wargal and his wife while the rest of the villagers squatted close by and stared at him as if he were a god.

‘We have to let the goats rest a day, or they’ll stop giving milk,’ Wargal said, ‘Is that safe, Wise One?’

‘Oh, I think so. But you’d best travel a long way north before you find a place to settle down.’

‘We intend to. We were hoping you’d come with us.’

‘I will for a while, but my destiny lies in the west, and I have to go where my magic tells me.’

After three more days of slow straggling marching, the luck of Wargal’s tribe turned for the better. One afternoon they crested a high hill to see huts of their own kind spread out along a stream, prosperous fields, and pastures full of goats. When they came up to the village, the folk ran to meet them. There were only seven huts in the village, but land enough for many families. After a hasty tribal council, their headman, Ufel, told Wargal that he and his folk were welcome to settle there if they chose.

‘The more of us the better,’ Ufel said. ‘Our young men are learning a thing or two from the cursed Blue Eyes. Someday we’ll fight and keep our lands.’

Wargal tossed back his head and howled a war-cry.

Their journey over, the refugees camped that night along the streambank. The villagers brought food and settled in for talks to get to know their new neighbours. At Ufel the headman’s fire, Wargal and Aderyn drank thin beer from wooden cups.

‘I take it your folk have lived here for some time,’ Aderyn said. ‘May you always live in peace.’

‘So I hope. We have a powerful god in our valley, and so far he’s protected us. If you’d like I’ll show you his tree on the morrow.’

‘My thanks, I would.’ Aderyn had a cautious sip of the beer and found it suitably weak. ‘I don’t suppose any of the Blue Eyes live near you?’

‘They don’t. And I pray that our god will always keep them away. Very few folk of any kind come through here – one of the People, every now and then, that’s all.’

‘The who?’

‘The People. The Blue Eyes call them the Westfolk, but their own name for themselves is the People. We don’t see many of them any more. When I was a little child, they brought their horses through every now and then, but not recently. Probably the demon-spawn Blue Eyes have tried to enslave them, too, but I’m willing to bet that they found it a very hard job.’

‘From what I’ve heard, the Eldidd men have some kind of trade with them – iron goods for horses.’

‘Iron goods? The idiot Blue Eyes give the People iron?’ Ufel rose and paced a few steps away from the fire. Trouble and twice-trouble over that, then!’

‘What? I don’t understand. The Westfolk seem to want the iron, and …’

‘I can’t explain. For a Blue Eye you’re a good man, but telling you would be breaking geis.’

‘Never would I ask you to do such thing. I’ll say no more about it.’

On the morrow Aderyn rose before dawn and slipped away before the village was truly awake to spare everyone a sad farewell. He followed an ancient trail that wound through the barren pine-stubbed mountains without seeing a soul, either good or bad, until he rejoined the road. Even though the fields were ploughed and ready for the autumn planting, and orchards stood along the road, the houses were few and far between, and villages rare, unlike in Deverry. As he came closer to the river El, the real spine of the country, the houses grew thicker, clustering in proper villages. Finally, after six days on the road, he reached Elrydd, a proper town where he found an inn, not a cheap place, but it was clean, with fresh straw on the tavern room floor.

Aderyn paid over a few of his precious coins for the lodging, then stowed his gear in a wedge-shaped chamber on the upper storey. The innkeep, Wenlyn, served a generous dinner of thick beef stew and fresh bread, topped off with apple slices in honey. He also knew of the Westfolk.

‘A strange tongue they speak, break your jaw it would. A jolly sort of folk, good with a jest, but when they come through here, they don’t stay at my inn. Don’t trust ’em, I don’t. They steal, I’m cursed sure of it, and lie all the time. Can’t trust people who won’t stay put in proper villages. Why are they always riding on if they don’t have somewhat to hide, eh?’ Wenlyn paused to refill Aderyn’s tankard. ‘And they’ve got no honour around women. Why, there’s a lass in our very own town who’s got a bastard to one of them.’

‘Now here, plenty of Eldidd men sire bastards, too. Don’t judge the whole herd by one horse.’

‘Easy enough to say, good sir, and doubtless wise. But there’s just somewhat about these lads. The lasses go for them like cats do for catmint, I swear it. Makes a man nervous, it does, wondering what the lasses see in a bunch of foreigners. Huh. Women have got no sense, and that’s all there is to that.’