She looked still at the lizard, but the humming stopped and she said quietly, “Welcome, my daughter. This is a fair day.”
So short a speech, and words such as you might hear from any lips, yet they drew me into a warmth of spirit, and I came and knelt by her chair eagerly. Thus did I meet with Past-Abbess Malwinna and from her, too, I learned. But hers was not the lore of plants and growing things, but of those winged and four-footed, and wriggling lives which share our world, and yet so often are made servants or foes of man.
But the Abbess was in the far twilight of her life, and she was to be my friend for only a short, so short, a time. In all of Norstead she knew my secret. I do not know just how I betrayed myself to her, but she showed no uneasiness when she learned that sometimes I could see the thing behind the thing that was. On the last meeting between us—she was abed then and could not move the body which imprisoned her free ranging spirit—she asked me questions, as she never had done before. How much could I remember...aught at all behind the ship from Alizon? And when had I learned that I was not like those about me? And to those questions I made the fullest answers.
“You are wise for one so young, my daughter,” she said then, her voice the thinnest thread of speech. “It is our nature to mistrust that which we do not understand. I have heard tales of a country overseas where some women have powers beyond the common. And also that Alizon stands enemy to those people, just as her hounds now tear at us. It may well be that you are of that other race, prisoner for some reason.”
“Please, Mother Abbess”—I took fire from her words—“where lies this country? How might I—”
“Find your way thither, my daughter? There is no hope of that. Accept that fact. And if you venture to where Alizon may again lay hands upon you—that may be courting greater pain than any sword thrust which ends life cleanly. Do not shadow your years with vain longings. Naught moves save by some purpose of Those Who Have Set The Flames. You will find that which is meant for you to do in the proper time.” Then her eyes smiled, through her lips could not. “Ill hearing for the young this promise of a better future. But accept it as the last gift I have to give you, my daughter. I say it by the Flames, there will come that which will fill your emptiness.”
But that had been said three winter seasons past. Now there was a stirring within Norstead with the war’s end. Lords would come riding to claim wives, sisters, daughters. There would be a marrying season and there was a fluttering in the narrow rooms below my tower perch.
A marrying—which made me think of that other tale which had come to us through many lips—the Great Bargain. Now would come the settling of the Great Bargain.
It was during the days of the first spring flood in the Year of the Gryphon that the Lords of High Hallack had made their convenant with the Were Riders of the waste. They had been sore driven by Alizon, knowing the fading hope of very desperate men, and the fear that they faced the final shadow of all. Thus hate and fear drove them to set up a call banner in the salt dunes and treat with the Riders.
Those who came to speak with the harried lords wore the bodies of men, but they were not humankind. They were dour fighters...men—or creatures—of power who ranged the north-eastern wilderness and who were greatly feared, though they did not trouble any who touched not upon the territory of their holding. How many of them there were no man knew, but that they had a force beyond human knowledge was certain.
Shape-changers, warlocks, sorcerers...rumours had it they were all that and more. But also when they spoke upon oath they held to that oath-taking and were loyal. Thus they would fight, under their own leaders and by their own strange ways, yet for the right of High Hallack.
The war continued through the Year of the Fire Drake, and that of the Hornet, until Alizon was utterly broken and downcast. From overseas came no more ships to supply her men. And now that last port was taken. Her forts on the high places were stinking rubble, and she was erased from the coast she had invaded.
Now approached the new Year of the Unicom, and the Great Bargain must be kept with the Riders as they had kept theirs with High Hallack. The promises of the Riders had been two: that they would come to the support of the Lords; and then, they would ride out of the wastelands, withdrawing from the land they had helped to cleanse, leaving it to the humankind alone.
And the other side of that bargain—the payment the Lords of High Hallack had sworn dire and binding oaths to render? That was to be in their own blood, for the Riders demanded wives to carry with them into the unknown.
As far as the Dales knew, the Riders had always been. Yet among them no female had ever been sighted, or talked of. Whether they were the same, with a life span far beyond that of humankind, was not known. But it was true that no child had ever been sighted among them—though Lords from time to time had sent envoys into their camps, even before the Bargain.
Twelve and one maids they asked for—maids, not widows, or those who had chosen to live beyond custom’s bonds. And they must not be younger than eighteen years of age, nor beyond twenty. They were also to be of gentle blood, and well of body. Twelve and one to be found and delivered on the first day of the Year of the Unicorn at the borders of the waste, thereafter to ride with their strange lords into a future from which there would be no return.
How would they feel, these twelve and one? Fearful? Yes, fear would be a part of it. For, as Abbess Malwinna had said, fear is our first reaction to that which is alien to us. Yet to some of them it would be an escape. For the girl who had no dowry, nor face bright enough to excuse that lack, no kinfolk who would shield and care for her, or who might perhaps have kin who wished her ill—for such this choice might be the better of two evils.
Norstead now sheltered five maids who answered all the requirements. Two of those, however, were already betrothed, waiting impatiently for marriage in the spring. The Lady Tolfana was the daughter of a lord so highly born that surely a great alliance would be arranged for her, in spite of her plain face and sharp tongue. And Marimme, with her flower face, her winning softness—no, her uncle would have her out of this Abbey and off to the first Fold Gather where he could pick and choose wisely among her suitors for good addition to his standing. Sussia—
Sussia—what did anyone know about Sussia? She was older, she kept her own council, though she talked readily about the small concerns of Norstead in company. Perhaps few realized how little she ever spoke of herself. She was of gentle blood, yes, and had, I thought, a good and even quick mind. Her home was in the lowlands of the sea coast, and so she had been exiled from her birth. She had kin with the host, but how close they were...Yes, Sussia was a possibility. And how would she welcome news that such a choice had fallen upon her? Would that outward amicability crack and let us see what lay beneath it?
“Gillan!”
I looked down over the parapet of the tower. There was the sheen of rime, the covering of snow across the gardens. I had a doubled shawl about me against the bite of the wind, yet the sun made a diamond glitter on the cloak of winter and a small, sharp wind tugged at Dame Alousan’s coif veil.
To be summoned by my mistress in this fashion was a thing out of daily pattern. And in me stirred a feeling which I had half forgotten since I had so well schooled myself against that which was trouble. The dust of time was being blown upon—Dared I hope for a wind of change?
Though I had learned to walk calmly, with unhurried step according to Abbey custom, yet now I ran down the stairs, round and round the wall of the bell tower, setting a curb on my haste only when I came into the open.