The White Hart (The Book of Isle 1) Read online

  She got him to his chamber and, pale with shock, made as if to examine the wound. Cuin stopped her. "They might yet come sneaking this way," he told her. "I must yet be a drunk and lie on my back, hah?"

  "Be easy," she replied, looking out the window-slot. "There they go, all four of them."

  The cloaked visitors had taken to the Forest to seek their missing comrades, and in a minute Pryce Dacaerin appeared at the chamber door, still blustering. "Now hear me well, both of you!" he shouted, but stopped when he saw Cuin's blood spotting the straw.

  "I am no drunkard, Uncle," Cuin muttered, and toppled into a faint deep as any drunken stupor. Ellid and her father got the shirt off him and dressed his wounds, but they had no more speech from him that day.

  Cuin awoke to first daylight the next morning and at once steeled himself to rise. But he need not have troubled; the cloaked men had not returned. Nor did they come that day or on those that followed. On the fifth day, in sheerest curiosity, Pryce Dacaerin took a troop and spent the day in the Forest. But no sign of them did he find.

  Cuin stayed at Caer Eitha until the middle of June, when his wounds were mostly healed and his strength returned. Then he went to Ellid. A quaint trouble was in his heart now that he could no longer hate his rival.

  "Small wonder that you cleave to him," he told her wearily. "Though he is no warrior, he is much man."

  "He is more than man. The blood of the Mother Goddess is in him." Ellid could not have said why she told Cuin what she had carefully kept from everyone else. "He was born of Celonwy after she had helped Byve from the burning towers of Eburacon. It is but lately that he has left the hollow hills of his kin."

  "And the Stone hailed him. And now that blood-fed lord who smote down his father seeks him also. But chance he shall be a match for him." Cuin rose. "I wish him victory, Cousin, and you the joy of his victory. I will go to my father's house now. May I be of better use there."

  She rose speechlessly to stand beside him. "Go carefully," she said at last.

  "I will take some manservants with me." He stood looking at her, and in spite of all his resolve his heart ached. "Kiss me but once, Ellid," he requested quietly, "for friendship."

  "For friendship, ay," she agreed hesitantly, and kissed him gently on the lips. Cuin went then without facing her again. But had he known it, her eyes followed him with better regard than she had given him in many weeks past.

  When he was packed and provisioned, Cuin went finally to the chamber where Flessa sat hooded and leashed to her perch. He took her up on his unprotected arm, for he was indifferent to a few more slashes now. "Free as the wind, he called my lady," Cuin muttered. "Truly I can put no claim on the wind; nor shall I put any on you, flying thing. Let you be another free as the wind. Go and find yourself a sweetheart, if you will." He carried the falcon to the courtyard, unhooded her and let her take wing. Joyously the bird circled away, flickering like a flame in the sunlight. But as Cuin mounted and rode out of the gate, Flessa appeared with blazing quickness and startled him by alighting on his shoulder.

  For miles her warm wing caressed his ear. Throughout the seven days' ride to Wallyn she stayed with him, sometimes speeding ahead and waiting in the roadside trees, sometimes perched sedately on his pack animal or his wrist. Cuin's men smiled among themselves in wonder at her and Cuin himself felt his heart lighten because of her faithfulness. When they came to Wallyn at last, Flessa entered the gate fearlessly and settled herself on the orchard wall, where no one dared disturb her.

  Wallyn was a gentle place, more walled garden than fortress, an oddity in that time as Eburacon had been in times past. Clarric of Wallyn was an oddity also, a man who took more kindly to books than to battle. Mean-hearted folk sniggered that the lady Rayna had married him to have her way with him, for till her death she had been as fiery and willful as her brother Pryce. Yet many lords respected Clarric for his gentle mind that still would cut its way to sooth like a sword. And Cuin, like others who knew him well, deemed that his father lacked no strength of spirit.

  "You do not look well in heart, lad," Clarric greeted his son.

  "Strange events are going forward, Father," Cuin replied, "and I have need of your counsel. Have you heard anything of cloaked riders, or of the black-haired heir of Byve?"

  "Whispers," Clarric told him. "But I see now that your body is as sore as the rest of you. Bathe now, and eat. Talk will go better later."

  Indeed, they talked late into the night. It took Cuin that long to voice the sharpest perplexity that rankled him. "All the world knows that I love Ellid," he said painfully, "and all the world says that what a man desires he must grasp and take, if he is truly to be a man; that is a warrior's way. But I feel of late that I have no right to constrain her with even so much as the sight of my saddened face. It is very strange."

  "Not so strange," Clarric mused. "I would say that you have learned to love better than one who would reach and grasp. I would say also that perhaps family is at fault here for having thrust you two so much together. This Bevan who claims kinship with the gods; perhaps she is his by a right greater than your birthright. Surely she is worthy of his regard. Think on it, my son."

  "He is an uncommon one, that is sure," Cuin sighed. "For little as I know him, I can feel his stature, he who looks to be no more than a youth… And I cannot hate him. If it were not such a wrench, I believe that I could almost admire him." Cuin laughed, and Clarric laughed with him, glad that his son still could make light of his heartache. For this matter of Ellid, Clarric knew that there was nothing he could do except what comes hardest to a father: listen and wait. And for some few weeks, he resolved, he would not burden his son with much work. Cuin looked worn from wounds as well as from sorrow.

  So it was, a few days later, that Cuin was doing nothing more strenuous than polishing his helm when a servant reported someone that in the courtyard wished to speak with him.

  "Who?" demanded Cuin, as a lingering dread of the dark priests of Pel pricked his mind.

  "'Pon my word, master, I do not know! 'Tis a black-haired youth, no more, but yet I half-fear him. His eyes burned through me."

  "Bevan?" Cuin exclaimed, and ran below. It was Bevan indeed, looking slight as a boy among the huskier men of the keep. Cuin found himself smiling to see him.

  "By the Mothers, you turn up everywhere," he greeted him. "How did you know I was home?"

  Bevan nodded at the falcon, who even then was aiming herself at Cuin's arm. "I knew it when I saw the bird, not before. I hoped only to work a trade of horses. But it would have been scant courtesy to have passed this way without giving you greeting, my lord. Are you well?"

  "Well enough. Pray come within, lord Bevan; my father will be eager to meet you."

  Bevan led his horse gently to the stable, for it was very lame. Then he and Cuin went to where Clarric sat stooped over his accounts. The older man left his work gladly to talk with them. By evening Bevan was speaking to the scholar and his son more openly than he had ever spoken to Pryce Dacaerin.

  "I showed myself to those last four priests of Pel," he explained, "and led them a few days' jaunt to the north to get them out of the way. I summoned up a shade at last to rid me of them; strange that they who are themselves but living dead should have such horror of the bodiless dead. But I lost one horse to the chase, and now I have lamed the other. Wallyn is a place of fair repute, so I did not fear to come here and bargain for a fresh mount. I would be content to go afoot, for I can go as well afoot as most men on a horse. But to fight these servants of the mantled lord I must be mounted."

  "So you will fight them," Cuin said.

  "Ay, by all that is dark and beautiful, what else? I cannot run from them forever." Bevan sighed. "Though I scarcely thought, when I came to this world of men, to battle for my father's kingdom. Revenge, honor, blood-price and face-price; these are words without meaning beneath the hollow hills. But now that I have seen how men feed on fear and blood…" He grimaced. "Does it seem likely to you, lord of
Wallyn, that further strife can put an end to it?"

  "No man can speak for men," Clarric answered quietly. "The riddle is useless, Bevan of Eburacon, for what choice do you have? The Stone has spoken, and Pel Blagden has heard."

  Bevan winced. "Ay, even so. Already the word of the Forest is that fire is seen again in that Pit far to the south. Pel Blagden seeks to augment his army by the vile means you know, Cuin—means he had not troubled to practice these hundred years or more. After the fall of Eburacon he still had servants enough for his purpose."

  "Do they never die?" Cuin exclaimed.

  "Never, unless they are slain by the sword, by beheading."

  "So how will you slay them, then, Bevan?" Cuin asked dryly. "I dare say you are skilled in many weapons, but surely the sword is not one of them."

  Bevan faced him with a trace of a smile. "I would be lessoned by you, my lord, but it would be perilous for me to stay so long. Yet surely there are folk in Isle who will lend their swords to my aid if they can be made to see the peril. I must seek them out."

  "You shall have my aid and that of my folk," Clarric told him. "Though we are no great warriors here, except Cuin."

  "And as for that," Cuin added, "you shall be lessoned yet if I have my way. Let me go with you, Bevan." He could not believe the words he heard himself saying.

  Bevan was as astonished as he, if he could judge that ever-sober face. But there was something more than astonishment; maybe a touch of joy? "Think well, Cuin," Bevan said after a pause. "Are you so ready to face them again?"

  "Soon or late, face them I must." Cuin turned to Clarric. "Father?"

  "Sleep on it, lad," Clarric said heavily. "My lord Bevan, will you not sup with us, and lie in a bed this night?"

  "I will sup with you gladly," Bevan replied, "but I take better comfort in the Forest than in any roof of man, even one as fair as this." He paused. "Cuin, if you would ride with me indeed, I—I shall be well content. But you must consider, as your father has said. I will wait on you in the morning."

  "Nay," Cuin answered, "I will go with you when we have eaten." And his father did not gainsay him.

  They left in the twilight dimness, a strange hour for Cuin to start a journey, but the best of hours for Bevan. The heir of Byve rode a fine steed of dapple-gray, the best in Clarric's stables. Cuin rode his favourite roan. No sooner was he mounted than Flessa flew down to take her place on his shoulder.

  They rode to the end of the tilled land in a silence that spoke more than words. Scarcely had they entered the deeper shadows of the Forest than Cuin espied a flash of white between the trees. Ghost! his mind screamed, but his eyes looked again; it was the figure of a white hart that ran beside them, of which the Speaking Stone had told.

  Book Two

  The Six Souls

  Whither goes the white stag

  And the falcon red?

  Cuin, Cuin Clarric's son,

  Whither are you led?

  Whither goes the dusky gray

  And the russet roan?

  Bevan of Eburacon

  Walks no more alone

  Walks no more alone, and yet

  What man knows his heart?

  What woman knows his inwardness

  Who walked so long apart?

  Hawk-red roan and dapple-gray,

  The falcon and the hart;

  Bevan of Eburacon

  Is served by Cuin Kellarth.

  1

  Within a few days Cuin had discovered that Bevan had strength disproportionate to his slight build, grace and quickness like a cat, and surpassingly dexterous hands. Yet he took poorly to the swordsmanship.

  "You have need of a better weapon," Cuin excused him. Bevan's sword was heavy, ancient and battered; indeed, to Cuin's shock, he used it for cutting firewood.

  "If I am meant to go on with this struggle, one will come to me." Over the flickering campfire, Bevan's sober face was unreadable. "That will be a sweet proving. It is hard for me to feel surely that I take the right path, Cuin. Before I came to this strange world of men, what was right was what came gently to my hand. Which this fighting skill does no whit."

  "It is a skill which requires much training," Cuin replied, "even among those who do it best."

  Bevan eyed him askance. "Bloodletting does not come easily, then, even to the hands of evil men? Then least of all should it have come to you, Cuin. I warrant you got it not at your father's house."

  Cuin smiled wryly. "Nay, my uncle taught me. But it is a needful learning in these times, Bevan, and one which my father does not scorn. Many times has my uncle's might defended the gentler folk of Wallyn. Pryce Dacaerin's reach is long."

  "You were reared by him."

  "Ay, since my tenth winter. As befits his heir."

  "You are much like him." Bevan regarded Cuin steadily. "Yet I believe you are more like your father."

  "Pryce Dacaerin is a valiant man, and worthy of my service," Cuin said quietly. "Yet I am proud to be my father's son."

  They traveled softly southward, keeping to the west but within the rim of the hills that rose between Isle and the sea. To the eyes of men they were two, the slender black-haired youth and the clear-eyed young warrior at his side. But to Bevan's way of thinking they were six who journeyed through the dim Forest. Two were men and two were swift steeds and two were even more fleeting things, the flame-red bird and the subtle white deer.

  "How did you come by this hart?" Cuin asked, and Bevan could not answer. He could not say that he had seen it first on the day he rescued Ellid. By unspoken accord they did not mention her.

  "You have heard that it is laid as a destiny on me," he said at last.

  "Ay, by the Stone. And this falcon: Was it laid a destiny on me by a certain son of the immortals?"

  Bevan smiled faintly. "You overdeem me, Cuin son of Clarric. I spoke but what I saw. It may be that we all have some soul that cleaves to us, for good or for ill."

  Their course meandered with the crumpled land and the crooked Forest tracks. From time to time they came to various holdings, each a sunlit patch amidst the surrounding shade. Centered, as if shrinking from the trees, would be a stronghold. Some were round towers such as Myrdon had been. Some were squat walls and ditches. Some were stone and most were wood. All were tense, watching walls, suspicious and threatening at the same time.

  Cuin knew many of these local lords. Often they had dealings with Pryce Dacaerin, bartering for his favor and his aid against whatever threat might loom at the time. Some were of greater influence than others. To their great halls Cuin and Bevan would ride boldly, gaining news and a sup and a cautious promise of aid in times to come. Bevan knew that they vouchsafed their hospitality and their word for the sake of Dacaerin's heir, not for him. Though they had heard of the cloaked riders roaming the land, their fear was not yet strong. Blagden, that dark place of horrors, was far away. And long since faded from memory were the days when only tribute of bright gold bought escape from the bloodstained oak.

  The two travelers always returned to the Forest to sleep, or rather for Cuin to sleep and Bevan to roam. Bevan would be pent under no roof after dark.

  "We have marked ourselves with these visits," Cuin said over the fire one night. "We should be pursued."

  "The Forest night is full of voices which conspire to protect us," Bevan replied. "Be easy, Cuin." But Cuin noted that Bevan was more wary in the weeks that followed. He led them on some strange paths; indeed, their trail was as tortuous as a bat's. Moreover, at times they took refuge in the thickest cover, silent for hours at a stretch. Cuin did not know what sense or informant warned Bevan of peril, but he saw proof of their pursuers. One day Bevan turned hastily aside from the Forest track and motioned Cuin behind a line of tall thorns. He held the horses' heads; the beasts stood still as stone while Cuin peered out beneath the branches and watched the priests of Pel ride by.

  Then Bevan took them on another crazy turn toward the setting sun. Still, they made their way mostly southward, far beyond the
"long reach" of Pryce Dacaerin and beyond any lands that Cuin had knowledge of—until one day that was not yet midsummer they came to the end of the trees.

  Cuin gaped like a boy. He had never known that a sky could stretch so wide. Before him rolled the sunlit folds of the South Downs. Waist-tall grass flowed in waves beneath the wind like nothing that either of them had ever seen. A towering elm on the farthest rise seemed but a sapling in the shimmering expanse.

  "The hart will not follow us there," Bevan said bleakly.

  Cuin glanced at him curiously. It was seldom enough that the white hart followed them anywhere. More often it dashed off upon its own inscrutable errands. They were likely not to see it for days at a time. But this day it was close at hand, standing not a furlong away, with its silver-crowned head raised high to survey the strange terrain.

  For his own part, Cuin felt an unreasoning lift of heart at the sight of so much sunny sky. But he understood why Bevan looked grim, or so he thought; it would be dangerous to venture out upon those shelterless meadows. "Still there's nothing else for it," Bevan muttered and dismounted. He strode to the deer and spoke to it, and it whirled and darted away amongst the trees.

  "He will await us at Eburacon," Bevan told Cuin, and rode away from the Forest without a glance. They traveled the rolling land, five souls now, until darkness spread its petals in the vast dome of the sky. Cuin had never seen such a soft blossoming of the dusky flower of night. He was almost glad that Bevan pushed on beneath its star-flecked blackness. In these wide, shadowless lands, the pale light of the young moon made plain the way even to Cuin's unaccustomed eyes. It was late when they stopped, and Cuin did not need the comfort of a fire to send him sleep.

  In the morning he realized that these curving Downs were in fact the gentlest mountain that he had ever known. They were camped on its rounded peak, and far away to the east it billowed until its folds were blurred with distance. To the west the drop was steeper, though no less soft, and at its base ran a bright river of silver that curved away into the shadows of wooded hills.