Magic in Ithkar Read online

  “That, too, may be mischief,” Corielle said suddenly. “You are not supposed to want any daughter, highborn or lowborn, nor any bastard, boy or girl. Your lady was supposed to make great trouble for mother, child, and you, and the cheesemaker is supposed to be in agony that her wickedness has found her out.”

  “What wickedness?” he demanded. “Taking a few cheeses home to her kin? But it does seem you know the mischief-maker’s mind. Have you found the wizard I am here to seek?”

  “His name is Lamok,” she said, and began to tell him all she had learned about the wizard.

  “Tomorrow I will ask about the arrow,” Rumagh said, “and you about the man. Until then, let us ask the gods to send us a dream or sign in our sleep.” He kissed her and was soon asleep himself.

  They had breakfast with Kallille and Rumara, who were both full of questions. The mercenary answered them patiently and with good humor, so that when he left to recover bird and arrow from the fair-wards, the old woman said, “He’ll do.”

  “He’s all right,” Rumara echoed, and tugged at her aunt’s skirt. “Come on, Aunt! The birds have been waiting since sunup!”

  “What?” Corielle asked, listening to the racket from the perches under the canvas. They did seem to be unusually upset. “What do they want?”

  “To look you over,” the child said, dragging her by the hand into the tent. “Just let them get to know you,” Rumara ordered, “and they’ll let you know.”

  It brought back the pain of losing Pawky again, and Corielle walked into the tent grieving for a scarlet little fellow with a hooked yellow beak spotted with green, a raucous voice, and a great greed for roasted, salted flower seeds. Around her the birds squawked, shrilled, and argued, one massive predator yawning his foul breath in her face. She walked among them, trying to banish Pawky’s image by calling to mind the birds that were there. They calmed down, no longer upset, but as if conferring among themselves.

  One in particular was making a great pest of himself, flying against her and around her face, brushing her with his wings, crowing, then flying off. He settled on her wrist and laughed at her. Trenchantly she said, “Bird, I don’t think I like you.”

  “Not Pawky, not Pawky,” the bird mocked.

  “No,” she said seriously, “I don’t think that’s all of it, although you’re quite right, you know.”

  The tent-flap was brushed aside, and boots rustled against straw. “Very handsome,” Rumagh approved. “Hello, bird. Do you have a moment, Cori?”

  “I haven’t touched minds with him yet,” she said, sitting on a bale of straw. “What news?”

  His foot against her bale, he laid Pawky’s body in her hands. “Bury him,” he said. “The fair-wards have the arrow. Its mate was seen in the quiver of a weedy, meeching youth in country clothing, the sort who might hide behind a skirt; he has not been seen again.”

  Corielle, Pawky’s body on her lap, listened to the rest of the description, coloring and pimples and walk and accent, and said, stunned, “I do know him, Rumagh, and he hides behind a skirt indeed; he is a temple lad and my patron’s apprentice. Nobody will believe my testimony; how can we get the one who saw him inside the temple precinct to identify him?”

  Rumagh drank from a bulging wineskin and offered a cup to Corielle. “The Lord of Ingnoir, whoever he be, is welcome wherever gods or gold is worshipped,” he pointed out, “and what lord travels without a bodyguard? Even a masterless soldier. For that matter, what of his hawk-mistress? Come, my lady,” he said, laughing. “There must be a gowner somewhere in this market!”

  By midafternoon Corielle’s long brown hair had been washed and dressed in the coiled braids of a tradeswoman who was her own mistress. She wore Ryeth’s dark red gown, ornamented with her own work; Bird rode on her wrist, silent. A man with an up-country accent attended them as she and Rumagh, Lord of Ingnoir, dressed in his finest, called on the Shrine of the Three Lordly Ones.

  The gatekeeper who had once bawled at Corielle, “Just where do you think you’re going?” kicked back his chair to rise and say deferentially, “How may I serve you, my lord, mistress?”

  Corielle heard a clank of coin in the gatekeeper’s box as Rumagh ordered, “See if the Lady Elandel will see me, my good man.” His good man bawled for a servant; footsteps pattered toward the inner shrine. As skirts rustled down the stairs, Rumagh loudly dismissed the soldier, then said warmly, “Well, Elandel, the veil must make you ageless. Look at me, all raddled, and you as handsome as you were twenty years ago. May we talk privately? I’m afraid it is only matters of state,” he apologized.

  With Rumagh’s own accent, the priestess answered, “Matters of state or gossip from Galzar, my ears are yours, Rumagh, despite the compliments.” She led them upstairs to a room with comfortable chairs, a fireplace, and some sort of desk or table, then called for refreshments.

  “To begin with,” Rumagh said after they had tasted a cup of spiced brew, “my hawk-mistress has a nose for bad odors and an ear for voices, and ...”

  Corielle sniffed suddenly, her face a mask of shock. From the courtyard came the familiar hard, contemptuous voice, overlaid with false joviality, “... can hardly expect a slut who can scarce brush her own hair to be trusted to tend a fine mount like this, but . . .”

  Rumagh shut the window and said, “How is it he rides a fine mount and not a priest’s donkey? Compassion for his kind?”

  The priestess stifled a laugh and said, “It is part of his business to spy on the priests of Thotharn, so he must be seen to ride like one; and, I fear, adopt their manners.”

  “How do you know he is not a priest of Thotharn in his heart, spying on you?” Corielle asked suddenly.

  “A good question,” the priestess admitted. “We watch such men closely. That is Ynet, son of Komal, and I gather that you know him.”

  Corielle held out the parchment. “Is this his hand?”

  “His very hand,” the priestess agreed. “But these are a lady’s ornaments, and Ynet lives alone like all Thotharn’s highest priests, vowed to neither lady, mistress, nor kinswoman. But it is his taste. How did he come to commission such a work?”

  Corielle laid a hand on Rumagh’s wrist. “I do not understand it, either,” she said, frowning. “Ever since I heard the voice of a proscribed wizard among Thotharn’s priests, strange things have happened. An unknown priest commissions this after I have talked to his lad, then this very lad’s own arrow is found in my bird’s back—then I have a sight that this very wizard holds my sister captive, who ordered her dragged off to the king’s brothels for her love for Lord Rumagh, but where?”

  “Would you know the voice if you heard it again?” the priestess asked, excitement carefully muted in her voice.

  “I might,” Corielle answered. “Understand, I only heard it once. My lady, may I beg a favor? I am a jeweler; to do my work well, I must know whether white or yellow gold becomes this lady better. May I be taken to see her?”

  Cautiously the priestess said, “Where do you think she is, mistress? For Ynet lives alone.”

  “Ynet must be seen to live alone,” Corielle corrected.

  A slight laugh escaped the priestess, and she rang a bell. “Send me Devira, Ranet, and Jaleth,” she said, and soon three women came in. Their voices came from somewhere above Lord Rumagh’s head.

  “Devira, you and Lord Rumagh look for his bodyguard, then bid Ynet’s lad attend me. Ranet, Jaleth, attend this crafts woman and me; we are paying a call on Master Ynet’s room.”

  Shortly Corielle was led through a maze of rooms to a door. The priestess knocked; slowly the door opened, and the priestess gasped. “By the Lords!” one of her guards exclaimed.

  An apathetic voice said softly, “How may this slave serve you, my ladies?”

  “Whose slave are you, and how did you come to this?” the priestess demanded, outraged. “And who are you, mistress?”

  The woman sighed and through tears said, “I was Yarrol of Red Creek Farm. My master’s name was
Lamok, but now is Ynet, a priest of Thotharn . . . but who are you? There are no women among the priests of Thotharn! Has he been overthrown?” She began to weep noisily.

  “Mistress,” Corielle said gently, “have you ever heard your master speak of a Lirielle?”

  Yarrol of Red Creek swallowed her tears. “He said she was his whore, and was now on the dungheap with all the other carrion, then beat me for asking; I am his whore now, but she was his before me.” She shuddered deeply and broke down again.

  Corielle put an arm around her. “How did you come to this?” she asked gently.

  The woman shuddered again. “I had a lover; we had not yet talked of marriage. Lamok spied on our meetings and charged me with whoredom—with my own sweet Janek!—and told me it would either be the brothels or this. I hated him and chose the brothels, but you do not know”—she shuddered again—“you cannot know ... I only regret I did not die sooner.”

  Corielle held out the parchment. “Ynet, or Lamok, asked me to make you this,” she said, still gentle.

  The woman laughed bitterly. “I was never to see it. He boasted to me that he had bought you off with enough to garb yourself like a rich woman and set yourself up in a better life, and so you would, and never touch tool to metal.”

  Corielle burst into unbelieving laughter. “Hung with his own rope,” she said, voicing everybody’s thought. “For I am not made in his mold, though he thinks everybody else is; nor are the rest of us. Mistress, I owe you all thanks, and the jewelry is yours by right. Or would you rather have the metal?”

  “B-but Lamok ...” she stuttered.

  There was a great roar from the courtyard, and the priestess smiled. “Lamok is under guard, and your tale will see him hanged or exiled.” As a petulant younger voice joined the chorus, she added, “And so is the lad who murdered your bird, jeweler. We will want you both as witnesses, but when that is over, be free and rest easy, all of you.”

  “So I am a lord’s daughter after all, and you are a lord,” Rumara said skeptically. “Are you really my father?”

  “I am,” Rumagh said, “but for the fortunes of war which parted us, and delivered you to the wizard’s cruelty; and that will be no more. My lady will welcome you; we have only an old military hawk-master long past the work, and a good-hearted lad with no talent for it.”

  “I think maybe I am for the marketplace and not the house,” the child warned him.

  “So be it; you have a good mistress in Kallille,” Rumagh said cheerfully. “And you, Corielle, are you of her mind?”

  “It may be, after a season; I have been my own mistress too long,” Corielle admitted.

  “My lady knows several men who might want a wife,” he suggested cautiously.

  Corielle was blind, but her aim was good. Swinging her long stick like a fair-ward’s quarterstaff, she belabored her lord about the head and shoulders until he cried for mercy. Then, laughing, they all set out for Ingnoir together.

  Esmene’s Eyes

  Ardath Mayhar

  The litter lurched and swung between the horses. Esmene set her hands against the thinly padded walls to brace herself as the horses stumbled into and out of the ruts of the road. Rough passages were more common than smooth ones, even here, and the trip down from her mountain home beyond the steppes had been even worse. She knew that once the small caravan reached the broad Plain of the Ith her journey would be easier. The mountain tracks, the road across the steppes, and the very fact of travel at all had her crippled body sore within and without.

  She had sworn never to subject herself to such discomfort again, three fairs ago, when last she had plied her trade at Ithkar. She had saved enough to see her through what could only be a short life, as well as her son into adulthood. There was money to buy the sacred herbs to burn at her husband’s grave. There was no desire within her to return to the Fair of the Three Lordly Ones.

  A hand tapped at the side of the litter, and she let down a sliding panel, through which a fine mist of rain whipped.

  “You are well, Esmene?” came the anxious query from the man striding alongside.

  She grunted an affirmative and rammed the panel up. Little did Horthgan care for her welfare, she guessed. He’d as little concern for her as she had for him. Spittle upon him! If he had not been a coward, her Haldorn would not lie in his cold mound of stones, cut to bits by a mountain cat. Brother or no, Horthgan had deserted his twin.

  If only she, instead of that one, had been on the mountain with her man! But she had been carrying young Hal, unfit for climbing and tracking after predators. It had been, she was told at the time, a miracle worthy of the Three Lordly Ones that she had survived her infant’s birth. And indeed, though that had crippled her, it had not harmed the child. He was a sturdy seven-year-old now, safe with his grandam.

  Her prematurely lined face softened into a smile as she thought of her boy. Then it hardened again. No, Horthgan had been instructed to bring her, safe and well, to Ithkar, to the temple, and to the enigmatic priests and priestesses who guarded the secrets those long-ago visitors from the stars had left with them. She, perforce, must go, let her body pain as it would.

  The litter dipped side wise, and her box of silks and needles slid roughly against her knees. Just one more ache added to those that she had acquired in this unexplained journey. Though she knew it to be unjust, she held that, too, against Horthgan.

  It was better down on the plain. There it was warm, and there was no rain. She opened the panels on either side of the litter and breathed in the green scents of the lowlands. There was the smell of water and mud and the things that live in both ... the breath of the Ith, coming forth to greet her. She liked that scent and relished it, knowing that it would be lost in the stenches of the city, once they drew near.

  This year those stinks were even worse than she had remembered, she found as they clopped down the way leading to the temple. There seemed more people, more beasts in the section of the fair set aside for the dealers in animals and their attendant matters. An unusual number of cooks and craftsmen seemed to be swarming about the middle section, where she had always set up her stall. She had had her own spot, and all had known it. There had been many a fine lady, many a wealthy merchant, many a vain priest who had come to her to purchase her fine needlework. But she supposed that after her absence from several fairs, her stall would be occupied.

  To her surprise, Horthgan did not halt the litter horses at the great doorway. Instead he motioned to the rest of the craftsmen in the group to go their own ways. Then he went forward to lead the animals through the congested streets of the fair. They were approaching the temple itself, Esmene saw. It did not surprise her overmuch, but she felt her heart tighten in her chest.

  She had seen those keepers of the temple at their best and their worst, in the years of her fairing. Most were cynical time-servers who hadn’t a vestige of belief in those long-ago sky-travelers who had set their strange house here on the Plain of the Ith. It was that sort that had come to her for the furbishing of their garments and the making of exotic scarves and shawls. Yet she had suspected that there were other, more earnest guardians of the old secrets. Once or twice she had heard tales of real miracles that had been performed in the temple, using those arts. Only those serious about such things would be able to make them work, she thought.

  Now her brother-in-law was leading the horses into the forecourt of the temple. The litter jerked to a stop, and Esmene unlatched the door panel and swung her almost useless legs about until her feet hung above the cobbled paving. Giving a push with her hands, she dropped, to stand clutching the litter for support until her limbs consented to sustain her weight. She had felt her face go white with the pain, and Horthgan moved toward her, his hand out to help.

  Before he reached her side, a quiet voice said, “Do not trouble yourself. We will bear the needlewoman as is needful, and we shall return her to the proper place when we are done talking. You may go about your affairs, Horthgan.”

 
Then that same voice said, “Close your eyes, lady. We go a secret way, but we trust your honor, and we will not bind up your eyes.”

  She did as bidden, and quick hands buckled something like a belt about her waist.

  “Do not be alarmed. This is the easiest way. You will find that you move without effort,” said the voice. A hand grasped her arm above the elbow, another touched the thing at her waist, and she found to her startled surprise that she was lifted just clear of the cobbles. She could feel the uneven ones brush against the soles of her slippers, now and again, as she glided along. To one who watched, she knew that it must seem that she walked by herself, guided by the hand on her arm.

  “Marvelous!” she whispered. “Magical indeed. I have found it in my heart to wonder if those long-ago secrets truly exist.”

  “They exist indeed,” rejoined the voice. “Here we go left, then right again. Draw in your elbows.”

  It seemed a very long way, the more so as she could not see their route. But they stopped at last, and another touch at her waist brought her slippers into firm contact with a floor. Smooth panels of wood, she thought from the sound. She stood as quietly as she could on her protesting legs, while the belt was removed from her.

  “You may open your eyes,” someone said, but it was not that one who had brought her there.

  When she did that, she found herself standing beside a low chair. The spot in which she and her companion stood was brightly lighted, the rest of the chamber in shadow. Because her eyes had been shut against the light for so long, she was able to tell that they were in a big round room with a domed roof. Then the light sent even that into dimness.

  “Sit, Esmene. There is food here, and wine. Then we will talk.”

  She was famished, and she did full honor to the temple food. The wine dulled the ache of her hips and legs, and she turned, at last, to that other who sat, veiled and swathed in gray, in the one other chair that she could see in the pool of light.