A last whip of the fog between us was sundered and I looked upon this stranger from another breed who had come a-hunting me. He was tall, though not of the inches of a hill warrior, and slim as any untried boy on his first foraging would be slim. Smooth of face as a boy, also. Yet the green eyes beneath slanting brows were not a boy’s eyes, but weary and old, still ageless also.
Those brows slanting upward, made the eyes in turn appear angle-set in a face with a sharply pointed chin, and were matched in outline by his thick black hair which peaked on his forehead. He was neither handsome nor unhandsome by human standard, merely very different.
Though his head was bare of war-helm he wore a byrnie of chain-link, supple by his easy movements within its casing. This reached to midthigh and beneath it breeches, close fitting, of furred hide, a silvery fur shorter in the hair than the pelt which had taken my fancy at the tent though still of the same nature. His feet were booted, but also in furred leather, their colour being a shade or two the darker than his breeks. About his slender waist was a belt of some soft material, fastened by a large clasp in which were set odd milky gems.
Thus did I face for the first time Herrel of the Were Riders, whose cast cloak I had gathered to me, though not through the same weave spell as intended.
“My-my lord?” I used the address courteous, since he did not seem disposed to break the silence between us.
He smiled, almost wryly.
“My lady.” he returned and there was a kind of mockery in his voice, but I did not feel it was turned upon me. “It would seem that I have woven better than was deemed possible, since that is my cloak you bring.” He reached out and took it from me. “I am Herrel,” he named himself as he shook out the folds of cloth and fur.
“I am Gillan.” I made answer, and then was at a loss as to what was expected of me. For my planning had not reached, even in fancy, beyond this point.
“Welcome, Gillan—”
Herrel swung out the cloak and brought it smoothly about my shoulders so that it covered me, from throat almost to the ground now lost in the mist.
“Thus do I claim you, Gillan—it being your wish?”
There was no mistaking the question in those last words. If this be some form of ceremony, then he was leaving me a chance of withdrawal. But I was committed now to this course.
“It is my wish, Herrel.”
He stood very still as if awaiting something more, I knew not what. And then he leaned a little towards me and asked, more sharply than he had yet spoken:
“What lies about your shoulders, Gillan?”
“A cloak of grey and brown and fur—”
It was as if he caught his breath in a swift gasp.
“And in me what do you see, Gillan?”
“A man young and still not young, wearing chain mail and furred clothing, with a belt about him buckled with silver and milk white stones, with black hair on his head—”
My words dropped one by one into a pool of quiet which was ominous. His hand came out and took from my head the bride’s veil, so swiftly and with such a jerk that it dislodged the pinning of my braids, so they loosened and fell upon my back and shoulders over the cloak he had set about me as a seal.
“Who are you?” His demand came with some of the same heat as Lord Imgry had shown at our night meeting.
“I am Gillan, beyond that I do not know.” The truth I gave him because even then I knew that the truth was his right. “A war captive from overseas, fostered among the Dales of High Hallack, and come here by my own will.”
He had dropped the veil into the mist, now his fingers moved in the air between us, sketching, I believe, some sign. There was a faint trail of light left by their moving so. But the smile was gone from his mouth and now he wore a battle-ready face.
“Cloak-bound we are—and there is no chance in that, only destiny. But this I ask of you, Gillan, if the double sight is yours—see with the outer eyes only for this while—there is danger in any other path.”
I did not know how to regain the less from the greater, but I tried fumblingly to see green grass under my feet, colour about me. And there was a period of one wavering upon the other, then I stood with rippling splendour about me, green-blue hung with crystal droplets. And Herrel wore a different face more akin to that of human-kind and strongly handsome—yet I found it in me to like his other guise the better.
He took my hand without more words and we walked from the never-never land of the mist into more green and flowering trees. There I found my companions, each companied with a man like unto Herrel, and they were seated on the grass, drinking and eating, each couple from a common plate, even as was the custom at bride feasts in the Dales.
To one side there were more men, and these were without companions, nor did the feasters appear to note them. As Herrel drew me onward we passed close to these apart and almost as one they turned to stare at us. One started forward with a muffled exclamation, and it was not a pleasantry I knew. Two of the others shouldered him back into their midst. Nor did they do aught more as we passed and Herrel brought me to a small nook between two sweet flowered bushes and then vanished, to speedily return with food and drink, set out in crystal and gold, or that which had such seeming. “Laugh,” he told me in a low voice, “put on the happiness of a bride, there are those who watch, and there is that which must be said between us which other ears—or minds—or thoughts—must not share. “
I broke a cake and held a portion to my lips. From somewhere I summoned a smile and then laughter. But in me there was a sentry now alert.
5
Trial by Spell
“I give you good fortune.” Herrel was smiling too as he raised cup in formal courtesy and sipped of the sparkling amber fluid it held.
“But,” I returned, low voice, “that may not be...is that what you must say? If so—why?”
He drank out the cup to complete the fair-wishing, and I drank in turn, but over its rim my eyes held his.
“For several reasons, my lady. First, this was not meant be worn, by any of you—” Herrel put his hand to the cloak which still spread a shimmer of glory about my shoulders. “By Pack Right they could not deny any the weave-spell. But neither did Halse, or Hyron, believe that mine would draw a bride. You have chosen ill, Gillan, for in this company I am the least—”
He said that easily, as if no shame or hurt lay behind his words, but as if some sentence had been passed upon him and accepted.
“That I do not believe—
“Smile!” He broke a bit from a cake. “You speak from courtesy, my lady wife.”
“I speak what is mine to say.”
And now it was his turn to fall serious, and his eyes searched my face, looked into mine as if he would indeed enter into my mind and shift the thoughts there, both those I knew and what other lay beneath them. He drew a sudden deep breath—
“You are mistaken. I have been wrought in such a way that I fumble where others move easily to their goals. I am of their blood, yet within me something has gone awry so that the powers I use may sometimes be as I wish, and other times fail me. Thus, you have come to a man who is held by his fellows to be less than they.”
I smoothed the cloak about my shoulders. “It was this which drew me, thus it would seem that this time your power did not fail.”
Herrel nodded. “So have I stepped where I should not tread—”
“And this is a reason to fear disaster?” But I did not think he feared, this was no rear-line warrior, whatever else he might deem himself.
“You know not.” He did not say that sharply. “But I would have you learn at this first hour that there may not be a clear road for our riding. Twelve and one brides did we bargain for, but near twice that number are in this war band. We left it to the spell that our destiny be read, but there are those who will not accept what does not match with their desire. Also—war captive from overseas you have named yourself, and then fosterling in the Dales. But you are not of High Hallack blood, none of them have the true sights. Therefore you may be far kin to us—”