Part 7 (1/2)

Jahdo tried to think of a really good insult, but at that moment the blond man grabbed Meer's arm.

'On your feet,' he snapped.

'You leave him alone!' Jahdo snarled. 'You treat him with respect, too. He be a bard.'

Although the blond man started to laugh, Rhodry hit him on the shoulder and made him stop. He walked over to Meer and knelt down in front of him on one knee.

'Does the lad speak true?' he said, and politely.

'He does. A bard I am, and a loremaster as well, to the twelfth level of the thirteen levels of the deepening well of knowledge, not that I'll ever see my homeland and my master again, most like, to complete my studies.'

'And the lad's your slave?'

'He is not that, but free born, travelling with me at my request.'

'Well and good, then.' Rhodry got up, turning to the blond man.

'Yraen, put your saddle on that white horse, because the bard and his lad will be riding in comfort.

You'll have to make do with bareback, unless you want to clamber into that pack saddle yourself and sh.e.l.l your own nuts.'

'What?' The man called Yraen was practically spitting. 'Have you gone daft?'

'A bard's a bard, lad, and due all respect.'

Laughing and calling out jeers, the other men in the squad gathered round to see what Yraen would say to that - nothing, as it turned out, because Rhodry caught his gaze and stared him down.

'Have it your way, then.' Yraen heaved a melodramatic sigh. 'You stinking b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

Although Jahdo expected swords to flash, everyone merely laughed. Rhodry's laugh taught Jahdo the meaning of that old saw, that a sound could make your blood run cold. It was daft and furious, merry and murderous all at the same time, a high-pitched chortle that reminded him of ferrets in a rage. The rest of the men, however, seemed to take it for granted, as if they heard him laugh that way often. With a shake of his head, Yraen strode off to get the squad ready to ride. As Jahdo watched them, he wondered why the view had turned so hazy, wondered why he felt so trembly, all of a sudden. Then he realized that he was crying, the tears running down his face of their own accord. Still kneeling, Meer held out one enormous arm. Jahdo rushed to him and flung himself against the Horsekin's chest to sob aloud while Meer moaned and whimpered under his breath.

'Forgive me, Jahdo lad, forgive me, and may your mother forgive me, too!'

In a river twist the etheric water puddled like a mirror, slick silver, edged with green. Evandar knelt on the bank nearby and stared down at the surface, but his eyes moved, following a vision rather than contemplating himself. All at once he laughed and sat back on his heels.

'They have them,' he announced The bard and the boy, I mean. Rhodry and his squad have seized them upon the road. They're all heading off to Cengarn '

'I feel sorry for that poor child,' Dallandra said. 'He must be terrified.'

Evandar merely shrugged.

'Don't you feel anything for these people?' Dallandra burst out. 'You're moving them round like pegs in a game of Wooden Wisdom, knocking them off the board and ruining their lives. Don't you care?'

'I love you, and I love my daughter, and I love the memory of Rinbaladelan, the sea-coast city I was telling you about. Beyond that, my darling, no, I don't care. Not one whit.'

PART TWO.

Amissio

A good omen for the taking of prisoners, but otherwise, evil in all things, though with great hope of mitigation. If it should fall under the presidency of Tin, the ninth land upon our map, it signifies evil without any such hope, for in all matters pertaining to the G.o.ds and their wors.h.i.+p, this figure works naught but ill and harm.

The Omenbook ofGwarn, Loremaster

Approached from the west, Cengarn loomed. The day when Jahdo saw it for the first time was beautifully sunny and fresh, too, as if the G.o.ds were mocking his fate and making sure he could see every detail of the Slavers' evil city. As usual, he and Meer, doubled up on Baki, were being led along at the rear of the squad. When it crested one last hill, the men spread out to rest their horses, and Jahdo could look ahead. Down below the view stretched out, the spa.r.s.e woodlands dropping to a valley of rolling meadows and green crops. Toward their side of the valley stood a solitary farmstead. Some way beyond that ran a stream, bordered with trees.

'The house be round, Meer, and there does stand this dirt wall, a mound like, all round it. I can see some cows, too, and it looks like they be white. It's kind of hard to tell from here.' Jahdo shaded his hand with his eyes. 'Oh! I do think that's the city.'

In the strong morning light he could pick out, far across the valley, three grey hills surrounded by what seemed to be stone walls, being as they were too smooth and circular to be cliffs. Spread across the hills were the tiny shapes of white-washed houses, all of them round, and some larger stone buildings. Over it all hung a faint haze - the smoke of cooking fires, most likely - out of which, at the top of the highest hill, rose a cl.u.s.ter of round stone towers with flat roofs, just like the ones mentioned in the old tales, as dark and grim and ugly as chunks of iron. When Jahdo described this view, Meer sighed, but he said nothing.

'It be not far.' Jahdo swallowed heavily. 'We should get there before noon.'

'To find out our fate at last. I can only pray that some kind and decent master buys you, lad. What happens to me is of no moment, for I am a broken man with no house or clan, but you have a life ahead of you.'

'Not much of one.'

Meer stayed silent. Over the past three days, as the squad rode for Cengarn, Jahdo had run out of tears for his lost family, his lost freedom. He felt numb, as if he'd been so ill with a fever for so long that life had receded to some far distance.

'Come on, lads!' Rhodry called out. 'Almost home.'

In a clatter and jingle of tack and hooves the squad jogged off downhill. When they came onto the flat, Jahdo got his first omen of what their welcome might be like. Just by the road a they saw a young girl, her blonde hair hanging in one long pigtail down her back She was wearing a dirty brown dress, cinched in at her waist with a length of old rope, and carrying a wooden crook, apparently to help her herd the cows.

At the sound of the horses' hooves and the jingle of tack, she turned toward the road and watched as the men rode by. When Rhodry made her a gallant bow from his saddle, she laughed and waved, until she got a look at Meer. At that she turned and ran screaming for the farmstead.

'Stop!' Rhodry called out. 'We won't let him hurt you.'

When the other men laughed, Jahdo remembered how he hated them. Although the girl stopped screaming, she kept running, darting inside the earth work wall. They could hear a gate slam, and dogs began barking hysterically - an entire pack, from the sound of it.

'Better trot, men,' Rhodry said, grinning. 'Let's get out of here before they set the dogs on us.'

Since they pa.s.sed the farmstead with no more trouble than the din of angry hounds, Rhodry called the squad to a walk. Apparently he was in no hurry to reach the city, for all that he'd called it home earlier, not on such a lovely day, perhaps, with songbirds warbling and the sun glinting on the stream. As they rode closer, Jahdo found himself thinking of the city as a storm cloud, floating nearer and nearer, rising high and dark on the horizon at first, then looming to fill the view. He couldn't decide whether he wished that they'd reach the city and get it over with or that Time would slow and they'd never quite arrive.

At length, though, they came to the West Gate, where a sheer rise of cliff, hacked smooth with tools and reinforced at the base with stone blocks, guarded a winding path up to the town. By tipping his head back Jahdo could just see the tops of the towers, rising over a dark grey wall at the brow of the highest hill. The gate itself stood partly open, a ma.s.sive thing of oak beams bound with iron strips and chains. In the shadows inside he could just make out a huge winch. Armed guards stepped forward and hailed the squad.

'So, silver dagger,' one of them said to Rhodry. 'You had a good hunt, I see.'

'Well, we've netted what Jill wanted, sure enough. Tell me somewhat. Are there a lot of people out and about in the streets today?'

'More than a few, it being so warm and all. Why?'

'I don't want the prisoners stoned and injured.'

Jahdo felt briefly sick.

'True enough,' the guard said. 'You'd best dismount, I'd say, and put them in the middle of you ' He jerked a thumb at Meer. The rumours have spread about that fellow you killed, and his kind's not exactly well-loved round here.'

Meet grunted, just once, but it was close to a sob.