Well of the Unicorn Page 5

  Once and again Rogai burst out with a remark: "Vard's a fool, but dangerous with his talk of reason, reason. D'ye mark how they all tailed to his kite when he spoke about the Empre being so precious? 'Twas he who made the trouble far more than that stinking fisher till Sir Ludomir had to compose all. He thinks wars are made by a decision of judges sitting all in a row on otterskin."

  Or it would be: "Would I knew what set the red dog barking. Whad'ye think, Airar, could your old he-witch have played false?"

  Little enough he got out of Airar so weary, who knew nothing of these matters anyway; and they ate cold at noon, where a brook came down sharply from the shoulder of the mountain over stones, bread and meat from Rogai's saddle-bag. He stood up with an air of decision when the meal was over. "That nag of yours," said he, "is something less than a racer, but you must push her. We have a long journey to the nearest inn and it's well to remember how sea-demons beset this road by night."

  Airar was willing enough to make speed, but it was another matter with the donkey, and in any case easy, with the languor he felt, to lose attention where it must be kept constantly or the animal would fall barely to moving while the traveller watched an occasional gull or the changing shape of the mountain, and his mind wandered into daydream of what he would do in the fighting to come, remembering swordstroke and bowpull as taught (keep the left thumb down), wondering whether the tilting he had done astride the old horse Pil at apples hanging from the boughs would fit him to use a lance in battle—with a little practice, naturally— but it was only a matter of keeping the targetpoint on a line between spearhead and the horse's ear, as Sumarbo Bukson of Ivigsted had said when they tried it together, shouting through the orchard in the summer afternoon, and Aslar, the dark-haired girl, said, "Now I will give you a kiss for a trophy," but he had thought that only true love should accept—

  "In truth, you work ill," came Rogai's voice. "Were you the very king of the clerks I would not suffer it so— not merely to dawdle on the way but even stop, when there is special need for haste. I'll never be fingered by sea-demons, my life rather. Oh, aye, you doubtless feel venturesome; but never pause to think that I'm a leader, with other men's lives and the cause itself in some sort hanging from mine."

  Airar woke as from sleep to find they were at the depth of a long swing of bay with mountain going up sharp to darken the road leftward, while to the right it went down in tangled rocks to the windless water where fishing boats lay with nets out and sails in heaps of red and yellow on their decks. The afternoon had run well on. "It is my fault," he croaked in his old-woman voice, "but—"

  "So much is clear." Rogai gave an exasperated snort and jerked his bridle so the horse pranced. "Now harkee, young Airar; I will ride round that next turn at my own pace, and wait a reasonable moment. If you come not, then make your way as best you can with your powers over grim things to that inn which is called The Star of Carrhoene."

  He whirled and spurred his horse to a trot; little jets of dust leaped up where its feet tapped the road and Airar felt ill-used. Whose fault was it that here he was travelling while in a state fit only for rest but that same Rogai who would hear of nothing but that he must make a magic, and now grew angry with the result? From all he had learned those sea-demons were no such ghastly cattle; more like mischievous vermin. The temptation to let Rogai ride on then held for a moment, was put down, and Airar angrily clapped his heels for speed against the side of his ungainly steed, which laid back its ears, but moved.

  His legs began to feel numb.

  He had done the shape-changing enchantment not more than three times in his life before, one of those by accident while he was learning, but he knew what this meant: the spell was coming off.

  He leaned forward and gripped the donkey around the neck with both arms as the numbness crept up his body, trying to keep it going. Unfortunately the beast was intelligent, and he was aware of it veering to crop a clump of winter-blooming hazel by the roadside. As Airar went swooning, he could no more than half-credit that he heard whoops of "Yare!" and saw men starting from both beside and ahead, where they had lain concealed among the rocks. His comfort was that Rogai must feel the same and would be in the road from his horse's back if he held his pace. Then two of the dream-men, very hairy, gripped the donkey's bridle, and some sort of blanket, stinking hideously of fish, was clapped over its rider's head.

  "That's clerk for sure," cried one. "See how un changed look," and Airar was pulled to the roadway. He struggled, the job was being inexpertly done with a kind of rough gentleness that another time might have let him break free to run, but now so weak he could not. "No harm, master," said someone; he was hoisted by four and with a growing sense of ignominy carried arm and leg across the road and down a slope, where they bumped his behind most cruelly on a rock, and so to the shore.

  "No harm, master," repeated the spokesman and whipped off the blanket, which had never been more than half on. "You witness now how we don't hurt you or that other one, and don't put nothing on me for it."

  Airar spat a fish-scale from his mouth, grimaced, tried to stand up and was helped, but they held his arms. "Why do you take me?" he cried. "I'll not serve Fabrizius." (For he could think of nothing but some trick of that mewling scoundrel to get him to sea as had been wished.)

  "That may be as may be," said the other and shook a beardy head, "but we don't take none for Lord Fabrizius or other lords, specially not that wear that." He touched Airar's hand, and looking down, the heir of Trangsted saw that through his own spell or other means Meliboe's ring had become plain iron. "We be free-fishers, and master-fisher he wants seeing you. Now you just get into the boat."

  Mind all clear now but muscles like dry grass, Airar looked round at faces turned toward him with a kind of respectful wonder, and reflected on what education will do for a man. He grinned. "I suppose I must," he said and accepted the help of one of the holders to get into the shallop at the edge of the rocks.

  6 The Iulia: First Tale of the Well

  "DOWN THERE," said the hairy man, pointing to a hole from which came up a smell affronting to a countryman, though Airar had not imagined the boat so neat a-decks or so compact below; she was of the type called iulia. There was a passage with a door that stood open and a table visible beyond it by the light through a small window at the stern. Airar entered to find himself, as now fully expected, facing Rudr the free-fisher, who got up from a bench, touched hands, and motioned to a seat opposite.

  "Make yourself welcome, master clerk," said he, but Airar:

  "Prisoners are welcome always, it's said, to the captor."

  A movement cossed the face of the masterfisher, anger or what one could say not. "You just call it prisoner if you like, but you'll come round to see how we saved life. They Mariupol coggers, they have their mouths open all the time like carp, and they'll just learn (whuff) how a man can't do that with old Count hearing. Unreasonable he's called and unreasonable he is, but not silly. That's why I'll have none of this misborn rising, nor let you neither. (Gruff.)"

  "My deepest gratitude," said Airar, doing his best to make the tone ironic. "It is much to do for a stranger."

  Rudr's eyes rolled to a point over Airar's head, he stepped to the door, and in a voice of remarkable volume shouted, "Tholing! Powry! Sweeps and up anchor!" The remainder of the conversation was punctuated with rhythmic thumps and Airar could feel the vessel moving; Rudr sat down and said:

  "We free-fishers say that to blow on one, wind must blow on all. (Mmf.) Aye. . . . Fair enough, we want somewhat from you; that is, dealing with the sea-demons that plague us. Doctor Meliboe, he's been our man for that, but not so like to be trusted now after what you do say two nights gone and this Mariupol rising. (Puff.) You just do this for us, and will lose nought by't direct besides being clear of this forebedamned rising. There's the thing, straight out as with freefishers ever. What say you?"

  The thought coursed through Airar's mind that this free-fisher had been something less than straigh
t out when he gave quite another reason for not joining the revolt the other nigt. He said:

  "Why, I say shame on any that can see the Winged Wolf up with the blades below and not have a part."

  "(Whuff.) Aye, a deal to say. We have young men like you in our islands, that will fish for the whale-fish in wind and ice, and then I must just tell their dandy-girls they're drownded. Have you a dandy-girl to yourself-ward?"

  "Not I."

  "(Grmff.) See to it, now. You have the air of a lucky man and lucky men should have care, which is the making of them. Only those fully selfish can afford to be brave."

  To Airar this seemed a silly argument, but he had no answer and merely sat waiting while Rudr stared at him, puffing his lips and blowing through them alternately.

  "Aye," he said at length. "Well, I'll not try to talk you out. We free-fishers say a man should keep his own thoughts and damn the world and Emperor Auraris. Small use trying to force you clerk-fellows anywise, that can just say whiff, whoof, done, and catch us with spells like a lobster in a pot. (Wmff.) But I'll just offer you fair bargain, one man to another, even be't you don't believe I can vantage you; for I'm an old man that has seen kings pass, and know this Mariupol affair is under an ill star, so it's your life to be out of it. Stand our aid in this matter of the seademons till the moon turns green again, which cannot take much time from your war if war there verily be. At that time's end I shall set you ashore where you choose with a band of fifty of my men fully armed, yours to command, with Erb the Lank to rule them. What say you now?"

  "That there is a somewhat marvellous change of spirit in this. A moment since and Mariupol was too hopeless to be worth one man, but now you throw fifty into the fire."

  "Aye. (Whuff, whuff.) I said you were a lucky man and say it still. Have no doubt that when Mariupol bumps, old Duke Roger will be up with a banner for fighting men to follow." He stirred in his seat and Airar was astounded to catch something like a tear on that shaggy old cheek. "Our land—our sea—they stink while Dalarna must bear the weight of the Mountain. Never lift it, nah, with guildsmen and folderol sword-dancers from south; and my people here bear all the undertow and misery when Mariupol cracks, for it's just the fear of revolt, not the thing, that keeps Count Vulk in some kind of bound. But old Count, he'll not dare to go too far while we have a gage with Duke Roger, lest all free-fishers join in. Fifty men to save the rest—save the rest—"

  His voice fell off into mumbling and Airar rolled the idea over and over in his mind like a morsel of spiced meat around the tongue and could find no taste but that of honest flesh, with maybe that faint overlying tang at the memory of how Rudr had given a reason insincere before the assembly of the Iron Ring. Yet captain of fifty! He thought enough of himself to believe he would be a good leader and it ate up all but the last of his country caution, so that he knew his face betrayed him as he said:

  "Why me?" and recalled how he had last used that phrase with Meliboe the enchanter.

  Outside there were shouts; the iulia began to swing gently as it came from the shelter of the bay into the swell of open sea, and the masterfisher blinked three times like a man coming out of daydream, then turned toward Airar an expression so broad that it could be called a grin. "Because you are not of us, young master. Matter of fishing ground or boat-building, all's well while we free-fishers hold our old custom of every man his say, but not when the wands are set for battle, nah, and free-fishers would no more be ruled by one no better than themselves than would your Vastmanstad farmers. Your task, young man, is to make yourself their master by knowing more than all." He stood up, bracing to the sway of the craft, produced from a cabinet behind him a black bottle and two pewter mugs. "We are at one, then. The Ring!" He lifted the mug, and Airar stood up to drink with him.

  These fisher-people, as Airar met them, were not too different from his own; perhaps seeming somewhat less guest-given and more sparing of words, or that could have been because they looked up to him for his clerkship, which had never been the case at home, where they had few bogies of any kind and many who could work the simple spells. Or it may have been that the sea-motion made him queasy so that he himself was not so brilliant as other times. A handful of land breeze was coming off the mountains; not enough fully to drive the little ship or her sisters, but Airar was taken with their beauty as they rocked slowly up and down like stately ladies in their bright dresses of canvas, the crown-sails serving as bodices.

  Toward sundown and Spanhavid now only a darker blue at the bottom of the cold blue sky, the wind began to rise and the ladies turned to dowagers with bodices and buttocks of sail swelling wide. Lights were put out; Airar was glad to go below and lean on a bench before a fire on a roundstone, while to do him honor, the fishers produced some of the sweet wine they import from the Twelve Cities, mulled with a hot iron; with which warmed, one presently began to talk of this and that and on Airar's questions how the fishers came by their peculiar charter of freedom.

  —A heritage from the Silver Years (said one, and nobody denied it) when Argentariiis was King, before the House called itself golden or imperial. That would be in the time when the heathen were still in the land, and of all Dalarna the King had rule of Mariola and Vastmanstad—no more, with the seventh Vulk in his hold of Briella brave as eagles against them and he and the men of the northerly provinces there good friends. This Argentarius was a stout soldier, we were not here else —no man to drink at the Well! Put down the heathen with the iron arm, un did, and won all Skogalang from them, but there's to be said that a's doing was touched with misfortune, win a battle and lose another when a's back was turned. Of those days Stavorna now was just a free city, ruled of three old syndics, Astli, Bekar, and who would be the third?—Derrivont, that's the name. They were the wisest men in Korsor and maybe in all Dalarna; but of them Astli was clearly wisest, so un could understand the speech of birds singing in trees. King Argentarius was mighty advised to bring un to Stassia for adviser in the great court there, but Astli would not; and in an extremity of the wars Argentarius a'self went there to Stavoma to consult him, which is a great wonder with him a crowned king.

  "I think that I know this story," said Airar. "In Vastmanstad we are early told the tales of the House and the Well."

  —No, no, not as we know it, who saw it all, they cried. Only hear; and the narrator took up his voice again.— This Astli lived in a house not too great and close by city gate. Un greeted old King well, but like any commoner come to seek an advice, and had nuts and wine set out as un talked. Argentarius put out the case fully before him, holding nothing back—how when un took a town on Skokalang border, the heathen would make a descent into the Whiteriverdales or maybe un be called from a campaign half finished to deal with pirate seamen of the Twelve Cities. At finish this sage gave one of they long long side glances and said: —There's a cure for all. It's a hard journey thither, but I have heard it said that if a crowned king drinks from Unicorn's Well in the acceptable hour, a's realm shall have peace as long as they both last.—But what manner peace? snaps Argentarius: Could I call it peace while half Dalarna that was my grandfather's realm lies under the dirty heathen and pays the demanded tribute of young girls?—And how is that worse, asked old Astli, than the tribute you now take of young men to die in battles that never have an end? Men accustom themselves to many things, he said, and the clear promise of the Well is that you shall sit in contentment to the end of your days.—Then that end will be soon rather than late, says the King; for I'll sit in no contentment while Dalarna's under the yoke. I did not come here to be told what I know already.—Yet you lack the force to better things, both as to men and leaders, said Astli. Well, well, then I can devise you only to form alliance with your neighbor Damastetil of Scroby, who can bring to the field fifty barons, each with a train of lances and men-at-arms, not to mention a's captain Earl Mikal, who is as good a head for battle as yourself and would be a brother behind your back.

  —I have tried; he wants my heart's blood, said Arge
ntarius, and looked at the floor without need to add more, since the whole reason Astli had brought up the matter was that un knew Damastetil's price of alliance was a marriage with his only child, Kry, not young and no beauty neither, being dark-avised with black hair, which made her always look as though she had failed to wash, a leaving from her mother, who was a princess of Uravedu. Earl Mikal was said to be in love with her; why, none say, but it is likely true, since an approved captain would not have stayed at that court else. Old Duke Damastetil was a little silly in those days, and thought of nothing but his daughter and the marriage she should make, royal at least, since she was a's heiress; had rejected Mikal in special and many more for her hand, though in all else he bowed to her. There was never a council when she did not sit beside him and un smiling say at the end of presentation—And how thinks my little princess?

  Both men knew it; still the sage said nothing and Argentarius after a minute ground out: —Giving a word is keeping it and marriage the summation of love or so my father taught me. —I have heard you were thinking of the people, replied Astli, wherat King Argentarius left him without no, another word, but sent him gifts later, which was considered kingly; and Tholo Longchin went to make a's suit before Duke Damastetil for the hand of Kry. It is not in the story as most people hear it that as King Argentarius half stumbled from the syndic's room un charged into a girl who was bringing in a renewal of the wine they were drinking; bore it to the floor. As un was the most courteous of kings, un made an apology and helped as best possible to clear the mess and so doing saw that she was fair-haired, tall and lovely; Astli's own daughter to wit, named Lanheira. There is no lack of girls of such beauty in Dalarna; it could be that it was merely from thinking on the short, dark, and bandy-legged Kry that the king's eye fell on Lanheira.