Crystal Gryphon Read online

  He had one bit of news: That Lord Ulric of Ulmsdale had sent a party south under the command of Lord Kerovan, but he himself had been ill. It was now thought that Lord Kerovan might return to take control at Ulmsdale if the invading army forced a landing at Ulmsport as they had at Jorby and other points along the coast.

  That night, when I was free of the many duties that now were mine, I took up the crystal gryphon, as I had not for a long time. I thought on him who had sent it to me. Where did he lie this night? Under the stars with his sword to hand, not knowing when the battle-horn might blow to arms? I wished him well with all my heart, though I knew so little of him.

  There was warmth against my palm, and the globe glowed in the dusky room. It did not in that moment seem strange to me; rather it was comforting, easing for a moment my burdens.

  The globe was no longer clear. I could not see the gryphon. Rather there was a swirling mist within it, forming shadows—shadows that were struggling men. One was ringed about, and they bore in upon him. I cried out at the sight, though none of it was clear. And I was afraid that this talisman from my lord had now shown me his death. I would have torn the chain from my neck and thrown the thing away; yet that I could not do. The globe cleared, and the gryphon watched me with its red eyes. Surely my imagination alone had worked that.

  “There you are!” Yngilda's voice accused me. “Toross is very uneasy. They wish you to come.”

  She watched me, I thought, jealously. Since she had come from behind the curtain of shock that had hidden her on her arrival, she was once again Yngilda of Trevamper. Sometimes I needed all my control not to allow my tongue sharpness in return when she spoke so, as if she were mistress here and I a lazy serving maid.

  Toross mended slowly. His fever had yielded to Dame Math's knowledge, but it left him very weak. We had discovered that sometimes I was able to coax him to eat or to keep him quiet when the need arose. For his sake I was willing to serve so. Yet lately I had come to dislike the way his hand clung to mine when I sat beside him and the strange way he looked at me and smiled, as if he had some claim on me that no one could deny.

  This night I was impatient at such a summons, though I obeyed it, for I was still shaken by what I had seen, or imagined I had seen, in the globe. I willed myself not to believe that this had been a true farseeing. Though with men at desperate war, and my lord with them, I could well accept he was so struck down. At that moment I wished that I did have the farsight, or else that we had a Wisewoman with such skill. But Dame Math did not countenance the uses of that power.

  That party of kinsmen had been only the first of the refugees to find their way hither. If my uncle had farseen that we might have to open our doors and supplies to such, he had not mentioned it. I wondered, marking each morn as I measured out the food for the day (which had become one of my more serious duties since Dame Math had the overseeing of the sick and wounded) whether we could eat even sparingly until harvest, if this continued.

  For the most part the newcomers were lands-people, women and children, with a sprinkling of old or wounded men, few of them able to help us man any defense that might be needed. I had spoken with Dame Math and the marshal only the evening before, the three of us deciding that as soon as the weather lightened sufficiently, they would be sent on to the west, where there were dales untouched by war, even to the House of Dames at Norstead. We dared not keep the burden of useless hands here.

  Now as I came into the chamber where Toross lay, I was trying to occupy my mind with plans for such an exodus, rather than allow myself to think of the shadows in the globe. About that I could do nothing. I must consider what I could do.

  He was braced up by pillows, and it seemed to me that he looked better than he had since they brought him here. If this was so, why had they sent for me? Such a question was actually on my lips when the Lady Islaugha arose from a stool by the bed and moved away, he holding out his hand in welcome to me.

  She did not glance in my direction, but took up a tray, and with a hasty murmur left the room.

  “Joisan, come here where I may truly look upon you!” His voice was stronger also. “There are shadows beneath your eyes; you drive yourself too hard, dear heart!”

  I had come to the stool, but I did not sit. Instead I studied his face closely. It was thin and white, with lines set by suffering. But there was reason in his eyes, not the cloudiness of a fevered mind. And that uneasiness I had felt with him filled me.

  “We all have duties in plenty here, Toross. I do no more or less than my share.”

  I spoke shortly, not knowing whether to comment on his using an endearment he had no right to give to me who was a wedded wife.

  “Soon it will all be over,” he said. “In Norstead the war and its ugliness cannot touch you—”

  “Norstead? What mean you, Toross? Those who go to Norstead are the refugees. We cannot keep them here, our supplies will not allow it. But our own people do not go. Perhaps you will ride with them—”

  As soon as I said that, I felt again a slight lightening of burden. Life in Ithkrypt would be easier without these kinsfolk ever at my side.

  “But you shall go also.” He said that as calmly as if there could be no question. “A maid has no place in a keep as good as besieged—”

  Dame Math—surely she had not planned so behind my back? No, I knew her better. Then I lost that touch of panic—Toross had not the least authority over me. At my uncle's orders, or at Kerovan's, would I leave, but for no other.

  “You forget, I am not a maid. My lord knows I am at Ithkrypt. He will come for me here. So I stay until that hour.”

  Toross’ face flushed. “Joisan, do you not see? Why do you cling loyally to that one? He has not claimed you within the marriage term; that is already two months gone, is that not so? You can now give bride-refusal without any breaking of oaths. If he wanted you, would he not have come before this?”

  “Through the ranks of the enemy, no doubt?” I countered. “Lord Kerovan leads his father's armsmen in the south. This is no time to say that the days of agreement be strictly kept. Nor do I break bond unless my lord himself says he does not want me!” Perhaps that was not quite so, for I had as much pride as any woman. But I wished Toross to understand, not to put into blunt words what could not be unsaid. If he went farther, it would end all friendship between us, and I had liked him.

  “You are free if you wish it,” he repeated stubbornly. “And if you are truthful, Joisan, you know that this is your wish. Surely that I—what I feel for you and have since first I saw you is plain. And you feel the same, if you will allow yourself to—”

  “Untrue, Toross. What I tell you now is as strong as if I took Flame Oath—as I shall if you need that to make you understand. I am Lord Kerovan's wife and so I will remain as long as we live and he does not deny it. As a wife it is honor-breaking and unfitting that I listen to such words as you have just said. I cannot come to you again!”

  I turned and ran, though I heard him stir and give a gasp of pain, then cry out my name. I did not look back, but came into the great hall. There was the Lady Islaugha ladling broth from a pot into a bowl, and I went to her swiftly.

  “Your son needs you,” I told her. “Do not ask me to go to him again.”

  She looked up at me, and I could see in her face that she knew what had happened and that she hated me furiously because I had turned from him. To her he was her heart's core, to which all must be allowed and given.

  “You fool!” she spat at me.

  “Not such a fool as I would be if I listened.” That much of a retort I allowed myself, and then stood aside as, with the slopping bowl still in her hands, she hurried towards Toross’ room.

  I remained by the fire, stretching out my chilled hands to it. Was I a fool? What had I of Lord Kerovan to keep with me? A bauble of crystal—after eight years of marriage which was no marriage. Yet for me there had been no choice, and I did not regret what I had just done.

  7

  Kerova
n

  It seemed that I could hardly remember a time when there had not been war, so quickly does a man become used to a state of constant alarm, peril, and hardship. When the news of the invasion came, my father made ready to march southward at the summons of those most beset. But before he could ride, he thought better of it for two reasons. He still believed that Ulmsport was now one of the goals of the enemy fleet, and he was not well. He had taken a rheum that did not leave him, and was subject to bouts of fever and chills that were not for an armsman in the field.

  Thus it was that I led those who marched under the gryphon banner when we went to the aid of our kinsmen. Jago pled to ride with me, but his old hurt was not such as would allow it, and I went with Marshal Yrugo.

  My half-brother and Rogear had returned to the dale of my mother's kin, as their true allegiance was to the lord there. I was not sorry to see them ride before I left. While there had never been an open break, nor had Hlymer, after the first few days of my coming to Ulmsdale, sought to provoke me, yet I remained uneasy in their company, knowing they were no friends.

  In fact I had lain but little in Ulmskeep in those days; rather moving about the dale, staying in Ulmsport, collecting information for my father while he was confined to his bed. And in this I served two purposes: not only to act as his eyes and ears, but to learn more of this land and its people where, if fortune favored, I would some day govern.

  At first I was met by covert hostility, even a degree of fear, and I knew Jago's warnings had deep roots; the rumors of my strangeness had been used to cause a stir. But those who saw me during my casting up and down the dale, who reported to me, or took my orders, soon were as relaxed in my presence as they would be with any marshal or master. Jago told me after a space that those who had been in such contact now cried down any mutterings, saying that anyone with two eyes in his head could see I was no different in any manner from the next lord's heir.

  My half-brother had already done some disservice to any cause he might have wished to foster by his own defects of character. I had marked him as a bully on our first meeting, and that he was. To his mind no one of lesser rank had any wit or feelings and could be safely used as a man uses a tool. No, not quite, for the expert workman has a respect for a good tool and treats it carefully.

  On the other hand Hlymer was able with weapons, and, for all his bulk, he was an expert swordsman with great endurance. He had a long reach, which put him to advantage over a slighter opponent such as myself. And I do not think in those days I would have cared to meet him in a duel.

  He had a certain following within the household whom he relished parading before me now and then. I never went out of my way to attach any man to me, keeping to the circumspect role that I had taken when warned by Jago. Having been reared to find my company mainly in myself, I knew none of those small openings for friendship that could have led to companionship. I was not feared; nor was I loved. Always I was one apart.

  I sometimes wondered during those days what my life might have been had not the invasion come. Jago, returning from his mission to Ithkrypt, had sought me out privately and put in my hand an embroidered case less than the length of my palm, made to contain a picture. He told me that my lady begged such of me in return.

  Giving him my thanks, I waited until he was gone before I slipped the wooden-backed portrait out into the light and studied the face. I do not know what I expected—save I had hoped perhaps oddly, that Joisan was no great beauty. A fair face might make her the more unhappy to come to such a one as I was after being flattered and courted. There are certain types of beauty that attract men even against their wills.

  What I looked upon now was the countenance of a girl, unmarked as yet, I thought, by any great sorrow or emotion. It was a thin face, with the eyes over-large in it. And those eyes were a shade that was neither green nor blue, but a mixture of both, unless he who had limned that picture had erred.

  I believed that he did not, for I think he had not flattered her. She must be here as she was in life. No, she was no beauty, yet the face was one I remembered, even when I did not look upon it. Her hair, like my own, was darker than usual, for the dalesmen tend to be fair and ruddy. It was the brown of certain leaves in autumn, a brown with a red undernote.

  Her face was wider at the brow than the chin, coming to a point there, and she had not been painted smiling, but looking outward with sober interest.

  So this was Joisan. I think that holding her portrait so and looking upon it made me realize in truth and sharply, for the first time, that here was one to whom my life was bound and from whom I could not escape. Still that seemed an odd way to regard this thin, unsmiling girl—as if in some manner she threatened to curb my freedom. The thought made me a little ashamed, so I hurriedly slipped the picture back into its case and thrust it into my belt-pouch to get it both out of sight and out of mind.

  Jago had told me she wished one in return. Her desire was natural. But even if I desired—which somehow I did not—to honor her request, there was no way of doing so. I knew no one in the dale who had the talent for limning. And somehow I did not want to ask any question to discover such a one. So to my lady's first asked boon I made no reply. And in the passing days, each with a new burden of learning or peril, I forgot it—because I wanted to, perhaps.

  But the picture remained in my pouch. Now and then I would look upon its casing, even start to slide out the picture, yet I never did. It was as if such looking might lead me to action I would later regret.

  By all custom Joisan herself should have come to me before the end of the year. But custom was set aside by the rumors of war. And the next season found me fighting in the south.

  Fighting—no, I could not claim to so much! My forester training made me no hero of battles, but rather one of those who skulked and sniffed about the enemy's line of march, picking up scraps of information to be fed back to our own war camp.

  The early disasters, when keep after keep along the coast has fallen to the metal monsters of Alizon, had at last battered us into the need of making a firm alliance among ourselves. That came very late. In the first place, the enemy, showing an ability to farsee and outguess us that was almost as superior to ours as their weapons were, had removed through murder several of the great southern lords who had personal popularity enough to serve as rallying points for our soldiers.

  There were three remaining who were lucky or cautious enough to have escaped that weeding out. They formed a council of some authority. Thus we were able to present a more united front and we stopped suffering defeat after defeat, but used the country as another weapon, following the way of battle of Waste outlaws who believe in quick strikes and retreats without losing too many of their men.

  The Year of the Fire Troll had seen the actual beginning of the invasion. We were well into the Year of the Leopard before we had our first small successes. Yet about those we dared not be proud. We had lost so much more than any gain, save slamming the invaders back into the sea again, would mean. The whole of the southern coast was theirs, and into three ports poured ever-fresh masses of men. It would seem, though, that their supply of such fearsome weapons as they had used in the first assaults—those metal monsters—was limited. Otherwise we could not have withstood them as long as we did, or made our retreat north and west any more than the disorganized scramble of a terrified rabble.

  We took prisoners, and from some of those learned that the weapons we had come to fear the most were not truly of Alizon at all, but had been supplied by another people now engaged in war on the eastern continent where Alizon lay. And the reason for the invasion here was to prepare the way in time for these mightier strangers.

  The men of Alizon, for all their arrogance, seemed fearful of these others whose weapons they had early used, and they threatened us with some terrible vengeance when the strangers had finished their own present struggle and turned their full attention on us.

  But our lords decided that a fear in the future might be forgotte
n now. It was our duty to defend the dales with all we had, and hope we could indeed drive the invaders back into the waves. Privately I think none of us in those days was sure that we were not living in the last hours of our kind. Still no one spoke of surrender. For their usage of captives was such that death seemed more friendly.

  I had returned from one of my scouts when I found a messenger from the battle leader of this portion of the country—Lord Imgry—awaiting me with an urgent summons. Bone-weary and hungry, I took a fresh mount and grabbed a round of dried-out journey bread, without even a lick of cheese to soften it, to gnaw on while I rode.

  The messenger informed me that a warning of import had been flashed overland by the torch-and-shield method, and at its coming he had been sent to fetch me.

  At least our system of placing men in the heights to use a torch against the bright reflection of a shield to signal had in part speeded up the alerts across country. But how I could be involved in such a message I could not guess. At that moment I was so achingly tired my wits were also sluggish.

  Of the lords who comprised our war council, Lord Imgry was the least approachable. He was ever aloof. Still his planning was subtle and clever, and to him we owed most of our small successes. His appearance mirrored what seemed to be his inner nature. His face wore a cold expression. I do not think I ever saw him smile. He used men as tools, but did not waste them, and his care for his followers (as long as they served his purposes) was known. He saw there was food for their bellies and shelter if possible, and he shared any hardships in the field. Yet he had no close tie with anyone in his camp, nor, I believed, with any of the other lords either.