Everran's Bane (21 page)

While I pottered among the irrigation channels the sun climbed, the meager dew dried away. I went to the spring and drank. A black and white saeveryr twirled on a fern limb, mocking me. Eskan Helken was quiet as a tomb. I climbed to the finlythes and sat in the shade, back against a trunk: but all Hethria's prospect could not fill my thoughts.

Fengthira was in the shade before I saw her, a dappled gray ghost with a pot of mint-tea and a pair of mugs. Her turban was off. There was sweat on her temples and her finely fleshed face was sharp with strain, or weariness. Over her arm hung four pieces of severed hide rope.

“Sit!” she said sternly. “Pour that out.”

As I poured the tea, she began, with her customary deftness, to splice the rope. “No,” she said without looking up. “Don't take him any. Don't go near him. If he sees thee now he'll never speak to thee again.”

I sat winded by that clairvoyance, wondering wildly what she had done to him.

“
Teach me to kill a dragon,
” she growled under her breath. “And ruined my good rope. Had to cut it off him in the end.” My mouth flew open and she gave me a rapier glance. “For his good, not mine. The stronger they are, the harder they fight. And I've not used Phare these twenty years. He might have broken my hold.”

“What—what is Phare?” I got out at last. I was very afraid of her, not least for myself.

“Sight.” A dour smile. “Into minds.” Once again she anticipated me. “Reading thought, that's Scarthe, but thought's not all of a mind. That's where tha thinks tha thinkst. Really just where tha thinks in words. Under that tha thinkst without them. That's where tha thinks more than tha thinkst.”

“I—see.” I was remembering how, before words can be spoken, they must first be formed in thought.

She nodded, reaching for another end. “Ah. Tha doesna like tha thought-words read. Tha likes it less when someone shares them first.”

“Er—” I said timidly.

“With Scarthe,” she said dryly, “needst not know. With Phare, tha dost.”

I thought suddenly of how we think, assured of utter privacy, and frantically tried not to think at all. She smiled sardonically and I knew she had read that too.

“Phare goes further. Hast a memory, ah? Some canst open when tha likes, some not. But t'is all there. All that ever happened to thee. Phare shows it all.”

“Four,” I whispered, feeling sick. “It would be like reliving—”

“Tha whole life,” she nodded. “With someone inside, sharing it.”

I shuddered, thinking I understood why she had had to cut the rope at the last. She smiled again, more grimly still. “Ah. But tha thinks with tha body too. Muscles. Lungs. Heart. Tha never ‘thinks' of it while tha lives. Wait till someone takes control of them.”

She glanced sidelong. “A ride on a bolter, ah. And no jumping off. Hast senses too. Phare steals them. Sight, touch, taste, smell. All lost. And speech. No, listen to the rest. Art only hearing it. Under that comes the part that tha thinks never thinks at all. The fire under the kettles. The things tha durst not, cannot think. The things tha wilt not let thaself think.” I stared at her, open-mouthed. “Phare makes tha think them. Through someone else. Some fight when they lose their muscles. They all fight when it comes to that. But by then t'is too late. Art under control. Canst only feel. Not act.”

Her nostrils flared. “Now tha knowst why I tied him. I don't like Phare. But without Phare, canst not learn. Dost not know thaself.” She finished the last splice and reached for her tea. “He knows now. Leave him be till he gets over it.”

* * * * *

We worked in the garden till noon, then climbed back to the finlythes and went to sleep. At last, when the sun was almost down, she took me up to the house, made more mint-tea, and gave me one of the mugs, thickly laced with honey, steaming and sweet. “Take that out to him,” she ordered. “Up t'hill. And bring him back.” As I looked at her in consternation she added, “Better if t'is thee, the first.”

Beryx was lying flat and straight on his face in the grass at the coign of the northern cliff, both arms over his head as if for a shield. He could not have moved all day. Grass seeds had fallen on his clothes, great patches of sweat had dried white on the back of his shirt. When my approach became audible, I saw his back muscles crawl and tighten as he clenched his whole body in defense.

I sat by his shoulder and put the mug between us: at such times, music had always been my speech. The light commenced its evening descant, the silence of Hethria enveloped us, while I sought in vain for an opening chord.

But then, stiffly, painfully, he untangled his arms. Keeping his face averted, he rolled over, sat up, and took the tea, cupping it against his right hand as if to warm them both. His movements were slow, forced, cramped, as if he had been beaten all over and the bruises were stiffened: but these bruises were not on the bone.

With a little sigh, he set down the cup. “Thank you, Harran,” he said, sounding spent and shaky, and forced himself to glance up. Instantly his eyes jerked away as if the contact had hurt, and I pulled mine away in shock, for his had the stricken, shattered look of one who has taken a mortal wound: and known it.

Desperately, wanting to help, remembering my orders, I said, “Lord... you will be too cold up here.”

He went stiff all over. Then he managed to get up. His hands were trembling. Under his breath he said, “Yes.”

We walked across the hill, me aching for a helpful word, he with the kind of desperate courage that goes forward because otherwise it will run away. But at the firelit door that too failed him. He ducked his head as he entered, as I had done to avoid meeting Hawge's eyes.

Busy over the fire, Fengthira merely said, this time in a neutral tone, “Sit.” And not till we had eaten did she so much as look at him.

By then he had swung round, left arm on the table, in profile to her. She did not speak, but whatever she did, the mere touch of her eyes made him flinch as if hit on a burn.

“Ah,” she said under her breath. With that same desperate courage he turned and looked her full in the face.

“Whoa,” she said, after a moment, and a small, not unkind smile moved the muscle of her cheek. “Needst not slaughter Hawge tonight.”

His eyes dropped. He let out a long, shaky breath.

She said, “Pass me the cup.” As he reached out, she nodded. “If tha canst hear, then canst learn to speak.”

Beryx looked up in perplexity. Fengthira said, And I too stared astounded, for her lips had not moved.

Her eyes turned to me. It came with probing interest.

Before I could start a panicky disclaimer, her eyes had moved away again. She watched Beryx for a long, silent moment, and in that moment her pupils contracted as if the light had changed and her clear gray irises assumed the shimmer of molten lead.

Then she said,

He swung on her with something like irritation to shield him, opened his mouth, and choked.

Fengthira watched impassively. He tried again. Coughed. Retched, gasped, fighting for speech as drowning men fight for air.

  she said.

Perhaps it was reaction. More likely it was inevitable. He was a king, and proud, he had suffered as much as both would bear, and now he could not so much as proclaim a mutiny. His face contorted as he fought to yell at her, he struggled as if manacled, clawed the air. Then came up with a bound that overthrew the chair, and charged.

Looking full in his face, Fengthira made a single smooth hand sweep and ordered,

He brought up as if he had hit a wall. She held him with those eyes whose hot shimmer had brightened to a midday summer horizon, while he fought to come at her, completely beside himself. Then she said,

He stood. If you can call it standing, when he was fighting to move with every atom of his physical strength. His eyes were quite black. Sweat poured off him. I think he actually foamed at the mouth.

Fengthira gave him a moment to see it was futile, and said aloud, “Rope.”

When I did not move, she repeated, “Rope. Hast lost tha feet?”

She did not raise her voice but I scuttled like a mouse. As I came back, she ordered,

Beryx's eyes turned greener and blazed with active resistance. Fengthira's widened a little, shimmering brighter still. I heard her breathe. Slowly, irresistibly, his hands were drawn behind his back.

“Tie... them. Tie... t'other... end... to kingpost.”

The words were spaced, as in phases of a mighty effort. My hands shook as I obeyed.

She waited a moment longer. Then she let go her breath and relaxed in the chair.

Beryx flew at her like a chained mastiff and brought up with a jerk that should have torn his shoulders off. He was beyond reason, beyond capitulation, let be any attempt at obedience. He did his best to break the rope or break his arms or uproot the kingpost, while Fengthira leant back, regained her breath, and wiped her brow.

“As well he brought thee,” she said without looking round. “If I'd that to hold without a rope, he'd not have needed swords.”

She watched a little longer, a breaker waiting for the colt to tire himself out. When Beryx was standing, winded and tottery, she said,

He gave her a look of pure demonic hate. She sighed. “Make up the fire, harper. And take tha bed outside. T'will be a long old night.”

When I woke in the morning watches it was quiet inside. I peeped round the jamb. The ember glow showed me Fengthira hunched chin on fist like a roosting owl, the gleam of a half-lidded eye. And Beryx, sitting on his heels against the kingpost, glaring implacably back. Before I could withdraw, Fengthira said without look or movement, “Make up the fire before tha goes.”

When I woke again pale golden light was creeping down the tower sides, turning them to sheets of maerian fire. Neither of them had moved. Fengthira said, “Tha'lt be cook today as well as garden-boy.” She went on, to my unborn question, “Make me some tea, and take something thaself. But not to him.”

Beryx was red-eyed and mad-looking as a half-manned hawk. He had begun to pace to and fro. As he turned I saw the blood on the rope, the raw welts on his wrists.

“Ah,” said Fengthira with irony, watching me. “If tha'dst write
Aedr
, must spill more than ink.” She turned her attention back to Beryx and kept it there while she drank her tea. Even as she said, “Now see tha to my plants.”

Nothing had altered at noon. At sunset Fengthira was red-eyed too, and her face had aged ten years. Beryx was past movement. He was hunched against the kingpost, head on his chest, eyes shut, every muscle of his body shouting unbroken, unyielding rebelliousness. I thought a little desperately that he would kill himself before he consented to try what she demanded, let be master it.

“Ah,” Fengthira agreed wryly. “If he fought himself like he's fighting me, t'would have been over last night.” She rubbed the small of her back and shook her head at me. “Naught tha canst do. My work. And my own fault.”

Lying in my blankets, I heard her say, with tongue or mind-speech,

Beryx answered with a baited snarl. Fengthira spoke with relentless patience. There was no reply.

When the stars counted midnight I thought of the fire. Fengthira did not raise an eyelid, but Beryx, still jammed against the kingpost, lifted his head to watch me with the dregs of exhausted belligerence. Fengthira repeated, quietly as ever,

He glared round at her. Then he said in a clear furious voice indistinguishable from his spoken one except it gave no hint of his condition.

I spun round, open-mouthed. Fengthira's face broke into a slow, tired smile.

“Everran,” she said, her mouth corners curling, “tha'rt enough to make me take up hawks. What wilt answer then?”

Beryx looked as stunned as I. He swallowed. There was a pause. Then, in that rather uninflected but uncannily normal voice, he said,

Fengthira rose, stretching with the effort of age. Her eyes twinkled.

As Beryx looked up at her I saw his eyes lose their frost of hostility, waking to a shame-faced acknowledgement, a tentative, rueful response. His mouth corners puckered, caked with dry saliva from foam and thirst.

he answered.

“Use the knife,” Fengthira bade me resignedly. “T'will be the end of my rope.” Taking the bucket she went out with that old woman's gait.

Beryx drank water, we all drank mint-tea, then I bathed his wrists in the hot water before Fengthira dressed them with a honey poultice and bandages thick enough for a horse. Beryx grinned, a little stiffly, and opened his mouth.