Katharine Kerr - A Time of Exile

‘And why are you breaking poor Cal’s heart?’

‘I don’t love him.’

‘Very well, then, but there’s nothing wrong with you finding a nice young man to keep you warm in the winter.’

Dallandra wrinkled her nose and shuddered. Nananna laughed, patting Dallandra gently on the arm with one frail hand.

‘Whatever you want, child. But a cold heart may find it hard to work magic as it grows older and more chill.’

‘Oh, maybe so, but I hate it when they hang around me, yapping like dogs around a bitch in heat! Sometimes I wish I’d been born ugly.’

‘It might have been easier, but the Goddess of the Clouds gave you beauty, and doubtless for some reason of her own. I wouldn’t argue with Her now that you have it.’

That night was the first in what promised to be a long series of feasts. Each alar made up a huge quantity of a single dish and set it out in front of their tents – Dallandra stewed up a vast pot of dried vegetables heavily spiced with Bardek curries – and the People drifted from one alar to another, sampling each dish, stopping to talk with old friends, then moving on to the next. Dallandra took a wooden bowl and trotted back and forth from alar to alar to fetch a selection of favourite treats for Nananna, who sat regally on a pile of cushions by a campfire and received visitors while she ate. By the end of the alardan she would have seen everyone at the meeting and dispensed wise advice, too, for most of their problems. Someday this role of wise woman would be Dallandra’s, but she was filled with the dread that she was too young, not ready, nowhere near Nananna’s equal. Her worst fear was that she would somehow betray her people’s trust in her.

Slowly the night darkened; a full moon rose bloated on the far empty horizon. Here and there, music broke out in the camp, as harpers and flute-players took out their instruments and started the traditional songs. Singing, or at least humming along under their breaths, the People drifted back and forth through the light from a hundred campfires. Just as the moon was rising high in the sky, the Round-ear merchant came to pay his respects to Nananna. Since she was supposed to be polishing her knowledge of the Eldidd tongue, Dallandra moved close to listen as Namydd of Aberwyn and his son, Daen, made Nananna low bows in the Round-ear fashion and sat down at her feet. The merchant was a portly sort, greying and paunchy, and his thin wisps of hair made his round ears painfully obvious. Daen, however, was nice-looking for one of his kind, with a thick shock of blond hair to cover what Dallandra thought of as his deformed ears.

‘I’m most grateful you’d speak with me, O Wise One,’ Namydd said in his barbarous-sounding speech. ‘I’ve brought you a little gift, just as a token of my respect.’

Daen promptly handed over a cloth-wrapped parcel, which his father presented to Nananna with as much of a bow as he could manage sitting down. With a small regal smile, Nananna unwrapped it, then held up two beautiful steel skinning knives with carved bone handles.

‘How lovely! My thanks, good merchant. Here, Dallandra, you may choose which one you want.’

Eagerly Dallandra took the knives and studied them in the firelight. One knife was decorated purely with interlacements and spirals; the other had a picture of a running horse in the clumsy Eldidd style. She chose the abstract one and handed the other back to Nananna.

‘My thanks, good merchants,’ Dallandra said. ‘This is a truly fine thing.’

‘Not half as fine as you deserve,’ Daen broke in.

Dallandra realized that he was staring at her with a besotted smile. Oh no, not him too! she thought. She rose, made a polite bob, then hurried to the tent on the excuse of putting the new knives away.

By the time the moon was at her zenith, Nananna was tired. Dallandra shooed the last visitors away, then escorted Nananna to their tent and helped her to settle in to bed. In the soft glow of the magical light, Nananna seemed as frail as a tiny child as she lay wrapped in her dark blue blanket, but her violet eyes were still full of life, sparkling like a lass’s.

‘I do love an alardan,’ Nananna said. ‘You can go watch the dancing if you’d like, child.’

‘Are you sure you won’t need me for anything?’

‘Not while I sleep, no. Oh – I forgot all about Halaberiel. Here, go find him and tell him I’ll speak to him in the morning.’

Shortly after dawn on the morrow, Halaberiel appeared at their tent with the four young men who were to ride with him. They all sat on the floor of the tent while Nananna described the young Round-ear she’d seen in her vision – a slender man, much shorter than one of the People, with dark hair and big eyes like an owl. He was travelling with a mule and earning his living as a herbman.

‘So he shouldn’t be too hard to find,’ Nananna finished up. ‘When I scryed him out, he was leaving Elrydd and making his way west. Now, the rest of you leave us while I tell the banadar the secret riddle.’

Carefully avoiding Calonderiel, Dallandra left the tent along with the men and went over to Enabrilia’s tent, which stood nearby. Enabrilia was cooking soda-bread of Eldidd flour on a griddle while Wylenteriel changed the baby. Enabrilia broke off a bit of warm bread and handed it to Dallandra.

‘I’ve got something to show you later,’ Enabrilia said. ‘We traded a pair of geldings for some marvellous things yesterday. A big iron kettle and yards and yards of linen.’

‘Wonderful! I should take some of our extra horses over to the Round-eyes, too.’

The Eldidd merchants left the alardan the next day, taking away fine horses and jewellery and leaving behind a vast motley assortment of iron goods, cloth, and mead. The alardan settled down to its real business –trading goods among itself, and sorting out the riding orders for the long trips ahead to the various winter camps. Just at twilight, Dallandra took an Eldidd-made axe and walked about a mile to a stand of oaks where she’d spotted a dead tree earlier. In the blue shadows under the old trees, all tangled with underbrush, it was cool and quiet – too quiet, without even the song of a bird. Suddenly she was aware of someone watching her. She raised the axe to a weapon-posture.

‘All right, come out,’ Dallandra barked.

As quietly as a spirit materializing, a man of the People stepped forward. Dressed in clothes pieced out of animal skins, he carried a long spear with a chipped stone blade, the shaft striped with coloured earths and decorated with feathers and ceramic beads. Round his neck on a thong hung a small leather pouch, also elaborately decorated. One of the Forest Folk, come so close to a gathering – Dallandra lowered the axe and stared in sheer surprise. His smile was more a sneer as he looked her over.

‘You have magic,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, I do. Do you need my help for anything?’

‘Your help?’ The words dripped sarcasm. ‘Impious bitch! As if I needed your help for one little thing. That axe-head is made of iron.’

Dallandra sighed in sudden understanding. The Forest Folk clung to ancient taboos along with ancient ways – or so the People saw it.

‘Yes, it is, but it hasn’t hurt me or my friends. Honest. No harm’s come to us at all.’

‘That’s not the issue. The Guardians are angry. You drive the Guardians away with your stinking filthy iron.’

To Dallandra the Guardians were a religious principle, not any sort of real being, but there was no use in arguing philosophy with the Forest Folk.

‘Have you come to warn us? I thank you for your concern, and I shall pray for forgiveness.’

‘Don’t you mock me! Don’t you think I can tell you despise us? Don’t you dare speak to me as if I were a child, or I’ll–’