Earth Magic (6 page)

Chapter 6

T
HE MAIN ROOM OF MORCA’S HALL WAS SET FOR HEARING.
Morca sat alone on the dais in his great chair, ankle cocked on knee, hand on ankle, enjoying his singularity. Before him, within a circle of crowded benches, stood a little baron, Aella of Long Barrow, pleading some case.

Fires burned warmly in their places. With breakfast long past and dinner a rumbling dream to be quieted with kitchen filchings, the boards and trestles were stacked by the walls. Barons and carls sat the circled benches listening to Aella and watching Morca, or moved about the room talking low amongst themselves, or perched atop the stacks, legs swinging. All but old Svein, conning the room from his staircase.

Haldane’s ears and cheeks were heated red in the new warmth of the hall. He spied Rolf the carl leaning against the dinner boards. He joined him and asked with an inclination of his head, “What progresses?”

“Nothing,” said Rolf. “Aella seeks leave to withdraw. He says he has present occupation at home.”

This was news of small interest to the boy. Aella was a minor man befitted best for long dull errands.

“Where is your fork?” Haldane asked, for he saw that Rolf’s fork was missing.

Rolf looked chastened. “I should have taken two when I had the chance. I lost it last night to a stay-at-home. Ludbert Lead-Butt won it from me at dice and he will only give it back in trade for my cord. I’ll kill him and take it back, I think.”

From the dais, Morca said, “Go then, Aella, You have my leave. But return for the betrothal banquet one week tomorrow and witness the sealing of Haldane to the Princess Marthe of Chastain.”

“I will an I can, Morca. I will do my best,” Aella said, and smiled. He bowed deeply and withdrew.

Before Morca could signal for another to come forward, Haldane made his way to the dais, conscious all the while of men’s eyes upon him. It was more attention than he was used to, the result of this marriage of politics. He walked the straighter for it.

Morca saw him coming. In his great roaring voice he said, “Hey, Haldane, you have affairs to attend to.” He waved to a Nestorian serf, one of Odo’s go-fetches. “Go tell Lothor to prepare his daughter to receive a wooer.”

Men laughed, led by Morca. Haldane stepped up to the dais and went to one knee by Morca’s elbow. He wanted Morca to know what he had done.

He said, “Hemming and I have been riding. I have made him my own man now.” He spoke low, for Morca’s ear alone.

Morca replied publicly, making their business common property. “I know,” he said. “It is just as I ordered.”

“No,” Haldane said. “Hemming follows me now. I have bound him to me by oath.” He wanted Morca to know that Hemming was in truth his man now, and not Morca’s. No longer Morca’s to order. “He is the first man of my army and he moves by my word.”

“Well and good,” Morca said smiling. “And I will give you more men later.”

He left the boy in doubt whether he did understand or no. If experience were the judge, he did not. He would not. He put his great hand on Haldane’s shoulder and bore him down, bringing him to both knees.

“Here, sit by me now until your bride is ready to see you.” He signaled for the next piece of business.

Haldane took his place at his father’s feet. He had never been in battle but his heart bore scars. He looked out over the assembled men and like a good Get warrior showed nothing of his wounds.

He did not know the man who stepped forward next. It was a stranger to Morca’s dun. But Morca knew him.

“Well, Soren Seed-Sower, what business do you have with me?”

Old Svein, sitting his stair, knew him too. “He is a Farthing, Morca,” he called. “His great-grandfather was your uncle’s enemy. Beware. Never trust a Farthing.”

Morca stood in sudden anger. He waved an arm like an axe blade. “Up the stair, old man! I tire of you, Svein All-White All-Wrong. You’ve lived too long. Open your mouth to me again and I will break your neck.”

And he sat him down again as Svein scurried up the stair to his stool and safety. Morca winked at Soren. “Say on.”

Soren was a soft plump man. He was no danger to anyone, Farthing or not, great-grandson of a strong and dangerous man or not. Haldane did not know the man, but he knew his name. He was an example often spoken of. He was called Soren Seed-Sower because he had settled to the land like a Nestorian. No one wanted to be called a Soren Seed-Sower.

“I ask your help again, Morca. Furd Heavyhand still harries me. Now he has taken five pigs and my fourth daughter back to his dun. I want my pigs back. I want Furd to cease his lazy raids. Let him raid the West like everyone else if he must raid.”

His tone made it plain that he had better things to do than raid the West or anywhere.

“The price is the same price you would not pay before,” Morca said.

“My oath?”

“No,” said Morca. “Your life if you break your oath.”

Soren shook his head. Haldane could not understand why Morca would want the allegiance of such a man. Should strength ally itself with weakness? If he were Morca he would have gone looking for Furd Heavyhand. Better one of Furd than five of Soren.

Soren said, “What will you do to Furd?”

“I will make him cease his raids and return your pigs. And your daughter, too, if you like.”

“That isn’t necessary. Let him keep her. She will make a sober man of him,” Soren said. “All right. I will give you my word, Morca.”

He was bending his knee before Morca when the serf returned from Lothor.

“Hold,” said Morca to Soren, and waved the go-fetch forward.

Soren, fat as a brood sow ready to drop a litter, was left half-bent. He had to make the decision to rise, set, or remain halfway in-between, and he bobbed indecisively, raising a laugh from these onlookers who were ready to find a laugh in him. He flushed, but then apparently decided that since he was to end on his knees eventually, he might as well do it and be done, and plopped down awkwardly.

The serf spoke to Black Morca. “Lord Morca, the little foreign king says his daughter will receive Lord Haldane now. She waits him in the small room.”

Morca nodded, waved him away to his corner with one hand, and nudged Haldane with the other.

“There’s the signal, boy. The Princess Marthe waits for you. Go on, now.”

“I would as lief not go. I have met the girl. I know already what she looks like.”

Morca clenched his great right fist and showed it to Haldane. “You are marrying the girl,” he said. “Don’t you think she deserves a second look before you are betrothed?”

Haldane said hastily, “Oh, all right then.”

As he left the room, Morca called after, “Don’t let her make a sober man of you.” And there was laughter.

Haldane paused outside the door of the small room where the princess awaited him. Lothor’s little brown heifer. His price for becoming a king and living an epic. He counted to five and to five again, and opened the door.

She stood waiting opposite the door, Lothor’s little dog in her arms, a tirewoman at her elbow. The dog yapped to see Haldane.

Marthe was shorter than he remembered. Today she wore no hat and bore less paint, but again she wore a dress that swallowed her. The sleeves were puffed and slit. Her dresses all seemed to have puffed sleeves that made her appear chubby and graceless. Gold chains hung down over her tight, jeweled bodice. Her hair was golden brown, her face was round, and her nose straight and high-bridged. She looked more the younger girl Morca had made her.

Last night after Lothor had retired, it had been recounted how Morca’s party had halted well short of the dun at Lothor’s insistence so that he and the Princess Marthe might change from their traveling clothes. They wished to make a grand appearance at Morca’s dun. They wished to impress all the important people waiting there. The Gets had let them, laughing to themselves.

“But why did they do it?” Haldane asked. If he changed his clothes once in a twelvenight he counted it often. More like once in a month. And every man who mattered in Morca’s dun was with the party. “Who was it for?”

“Well, it must have been for you,” said Morca. “And Oliver. And the pigs. And the kitchen women.” Everyone laughed as he worked his way down the scale. “Were you impressed?”

“No,” said Haldane. “As for the kitchen women, you must ask them.”

Now looking the girl over, he still was not impressed. As he closed the door behind him, Marthe handed the dog to the tirewoman who retired a step or two, not so far that she couldn’t hear all that was said, but far enough to remove herself from the affairs of her betters, at least by implication. The dog was a trembling fragile thing and it strained futilely to be free. Grunt would have been ashamed to kill it.

Still without a word—for what did he have to say to her?—Haldane walked around Marthe, taking advantage of the opportunity to see her from all sides. That, after all, was his reason for coming. As he passed her, the tirewoman backed even farther as though to give him all the room he could demand and an extra margin for her own peace of mind. She was a gray woman dressed in gray—grayness compounded.

The young Princess of Chastain tried to turn to continue facing him, but her skirts were long and heavy and allowed no freedom of movement. To turn without tangling she must stoop and lift her skirts free. She refused to stoop and she would not tangle herself so she stood still, wrestling with fury, while he looked at her. It pleased him to make her angry because there was nothing else about her that could please him and he craved some satisfaction.

“Have you stripped me with your eyes to your content, you barbarian pig?” she asked.

It was a well-turned nastiness in the narrow Nestorian spoken by the highborn of Chastain, but in the distance between them the nuance was lost. Haldane heard only, “Have you seen your fill?” He did not recognize the word “barbarian.” It was not a word used by peasants, by Oliver, or by Leonidus the Poet King. And pigs smelled far sweeter to him than they did to her. He came very close to hearing a compliment. Only her tone saved her meaning.

He surprised her by replying in his simple country Nestorian: “That I have. My fill and more.” She clearly hadn’t expected to be understood at all, but had been speaking bravely for the tirewoman to hear. He turned his back and walked to a chest by the door, which he took for a seat.

“So you speak Nestorian,” she said.

“That I may talk to serfs and my orders be understood,” he said. “But I will teach you Gettish.”

“I will not learn it!”

“Please yourself. You may sit in this room and face the wall until you die if that is what you like. You may mumble Nestorian to yourself as you do.”

“I will entreat My Lady Libera to strike me dead and burn this place with fire after me.”

Haldane’s hand went to his boar’s tooth. He was afraid, struck to the heart by her words as he would be by any mention of the Goddess. But he would show none of it. Was she kind of the Goddess? Was the witch’s hand in this? No matter. He forced a lifted chin, a laugh, and light words.

“Tell me more of your Libera and what she will do.”

But she shook her head a sudden and determined no as though she felt she had said too much. And then she just stared at him, her eyes great and round. There was a long and numbing silence.

“Say on.”

But she said nothing.

“Say something.”

At last she said, “Do you wish me to speak of the weather?”

“If you like.”

“I like it not at all. It has been nothing but clouds and cold and rain since we crossed the Nails.”

Haldane said, “It is spring.” But she was speaking and not listening.

“Or health? I am bruised and sore from traveling over fallen roads.” Marthe spoke intensely. “Would you like another subject?”

“An you wish,” Haldane said.

“I wanted to have a bath last night and they told me I must wait until we are betrothed. Is this a Gettish custom?”

The tirewoman gasped. In a small voice she said, “Oh, my lady! You told your father you would not ask.”

“I am asking. Must I stay travel-dirty until we are betrothed?”

“No,” said Haldane. “You must stay travel-dirty until bath night. That is Cel’s Day coming, the day we are plighted.”

She turned away and looked upward. In a desperate voice she said, “Oh, my life! Am I lost? Am I lost? Oh, if I were only home again where life is right. What must I forego next?”

Haldane said, “You are much too nice. I’ll wager my father’s treasure that when you shit you have a servant standing ready to wipe you. You are a heavy price to pay for ambition. You should have stayed at home with your own in Chastain and never entered my life.”

This stung the girl. Her head snapped round to face him. Her eyes widened in outrage. She opened her mouth to speak and no words came. She hit the air with her fists in frustration.

Finally she managed to say in pain and anger, “I had no choice! Your butcher father has dragged me here to marry you against my will. If I could I would kill him, and you too.”

Haldane shrugged. “Sheep are made to be shorn.”

“A sheep?” the girl asked. She reached into the folds of her skirt and brought forth a knife. It was no plaything. It was narrower in the blade than Haldane would have liked, but yet it looked to be a mean stinger in the hands of one who could use it. If this girl was one.

“You have brought me here,” she said. “You may marry me. But mind yourself. If you ever lay a hand on me, I shall kill you.”

On the instant Haldane was off the great chest on which he sat and across the room. He lifted his left hand and struck the small Princess of Chastain a smart slap on the cheek. The dog in the tirewoman’s arms yapped sharply. The girl slowly touched her reddening cheek as though to confirm the blow.

“There,” Haldane said. “Now I’ve laid a hand on you.”

When Haldane returned to the hall, it was to find Morca’s audience concluded and the room emptying of men. He saw Oliver in his red robe, his spectacles on his nose, crossing the room slowly to accost Morca at the foot of his stair. Oliver looked to be suffering the hobbles for his successful display of magical craft before Lothor at dinner. Haldane had not expected to see him abroad today.