Hallsfoot's Battle (15 page)

“It seems to me that the gods and stars are
not doing their best for you,” he said, “no matter what our
efforts. Can I really be ready for whatever role it is you are
convinced I should play in time for when I need to play it?”

Simon had meant to speak lightly, perhaps
even to make her smile, but she shook her head, wiping her hands
clean of herbs and cornflour with a bright green cloth, and drew up
a stool opposite him.

“You will have to be,” she said. “And for
that, you need to take hold of the mind-cane again. You have to
start learning its mysteries.”

“No.”

Simon’s response was instinctive. Up until
now, his contact with the cane had been perfunctory, irregular. His
experiences during those thankfully brief times had not been
pleasant. He didn’t like the way it showed him more clearly who he
was. Annyeke’s request made him shiver. At the same time, the cane
began to hum and the snow-raven spread his wings and cocked his
head at the scribe.

Annyeke brushed aside his objections and the
threats of their strange companions with a wave of her hand. “It’s
the way we haven’t tried yet, Simon. I’m not sure we have a choice.
Not if we want to be alive when the spring-cycle arrives next year.
Nothing frightening has happened yet, and that makes people relax
their guard. But, believe me when I say this: it will happen.
Gelahn will not accept defeat in the arena of the mind and will
fight us hand to hand, limb to limb and weapon to weapon. Because
of Ralph Tregannon and the Lammas People’s training in war, he will
be stronger than we are. That is why we have to use the mind-cane
if we can, and the only door to that is you. We must do what we are
able to, but the only advantage we have is you, and…”

His companion stuttered to a halt and wiped
away sudden tears. As Simon reached across, uncertain what to do
with a crying woman, but realised he had to do something. She shook
her head and backed away from him. In a matter of moments, she’d
propped herself up against the kitchen work area and could go no
further. There, as Simon half stood, she began to weep in earnest,
letting the tears fall without shame.

“Annyeke…please, I’m sorry if…” Cursing under
his breath, he grabbed the nearest, cleanest looking piece of cloth
and offered it to her. She nodded and took it, wiping her eyes, but
continued to cry. At the touch of her hand, great swathes of
despair and confusion, red and black and grey, flooded over his
thoughts. It felt as if he were drowning in her emotions. Falling,
falling. He snatched his hand away, but the sensation of falling
remained. Just like in the Kingdom of the Air, his feet hovered
over nothing and he had no strength to haul himself to safety.

Annyeke.

He couldn’t find the ability to speak out
loud but had to rely on the merest wisp of thought. His eyes told
him he was still half standing and must appear no different to her,
if she chose to glance at him. But inside he was being destroyed,
and not slowly either. Annyeke.

“Wh-What is it?”

Please…you’re…drowning…me.

For a moment longer she stared at him. Then,
she took a deep breath and placed her hands on her forehead, as if
in an attempt to contain herself. The length of the start of a
winter story later, Simon felt his mind being liberated from the
pain and grief that had imprisoned it.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, wiping the tears
from her face, “I’m sorry. I felt…everything overwhelmed me for a
moment. I didn’t imagine it would affect you like that. Are you all
right?”

He nodded, found himself sitting on the
floor, half leaning against the table. He could sense Annyeke’s
continuing struggle and wondered if her feelings might overpower
them both again. As sweat sullied his vision, Simon saw the
snow-raven spread his wings, lean forward and open his beak. He
blinked and the picture crystallised into precision. He thought the
bird might sing or perhaps speak to him in the way that had
happened before. Instead, one single blue sphere slipped from the
raven into the air. A perfect circle. As the mind-cane began to
hum, the scribe reached forward and took the circle. It warmed his
fingers like a good fire on a winter night.

“What is it?” Annyeke’s voice whispered both
in his ear and in his thoughts, but he shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Without warning, the circle elongated around
Simon’s hand and spun a web of blue air around the two of them. He
gasped and was about to move when Annyeke grabbed his arm. Wait.
It’s not hurting us.

That was easy for her to say—and in the
thinking of it he knew she’d heard him. Her wry smile told him
that. Several heartbeats went by and then the air around them was
its usual self again. The cane, also, was silent. The snow-raven
folded his wings and cocked his head onto one side. Glancing down,
Simon saw a faint blue tinge to his fingers, as if something was
lying just below his skin. He wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of
that, but the most important fact right now was that the sense of
oppression and despair had been lifted. Even Annyeke’s tears were
dry. Unable to stop himself, he reached inside his inner tunic and
touched the feather the snow-raven had given him at their first
meeting. Somehow, it gave him strength.

Annyeke raised her eyebrows at him and
laughed.

“I don’t feel quite so hopeless now,” she
said. “Thank you.”

“It was the raven, not me,” he replied, but
his words merely made her frown again. However, her frown was
directed at the bird and not at him, he realised, and then the
sudden link with her mind opened out within him just for a moment
or two before she let him go.

“You don’t like the snow-raven,” he said, the
words spoken before he could reclaim them from his tongue. “In
fact, you don’t like birds at all.”

He’d known this before, of course, but not
the degree of it. Annyeke pursed her lips and rose to her feet,
brushing down imaginary stains on her skirts as she did so. “No.
Not really. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not a crime.”

The bird hissed at that, but Simon stood and
made sure he interposed himself between the raven and his
companion. Annyeke drew herself up a little taller and glared at
him.

“Thank you, but you don’t have to do that,”
she said. “I can look after myself.”

“I know,” the scribe replied. “But I can’t.
And I don’t want to be in the middle of another fight before I have
to. Tell me why you don’t like birds.”

Simon had no idea why this suddenly seemed
important, but he could not have stopped the words if he’d
tried.

Annyeke shrugged. “I just don’t. That’s all.
I don’t want to say any more about it. What would be the point? But
I do understand that for whatever reason we need the snow-raven.
You need him.”

“But you find it difficult to teach me what I
need to know about Gathandria with the bird here?”

A long pause. Both the cane and the
snow-raven were silent. Then Annyeke sighed and her shoulders
slumped. “Yes, I think I do.”

Without hesitation, Simon took a couple of
paces forward and hugged her. In his arms, she felt warm and
surprisingly vulnerable for someone as strong as she was. He hadn’t
touched her before, not like this. In fact, it came to him that he
hadn’t touched another woman since his mother. As that thought
crossed his mind, a strange sound came from Annyeke and a moment
later he realised she was snorting with laughter.

“I’m most certainly not your mother, Simon,”
she said, releasing herself and stepping back. “And I’m glad to
discover I’ve given you at least one new experience today.”

He let her go and then couldn’t help joining
in her laughter. It was she who recovered first.

“Good,” she said. “Because if we can laugh,
then perhaps there’s hope. But we need to press on. There isn’t
much time. Before it gets dark, I think I should tell you the
Second Gathandrian Legend. It deals with justice and anger.”

Even before the snow-raven opened his beak
and hissed once more, Simon already had his answer on his
tongue.

“No,” he said, so quietly that Annyeke had to
lean forward to catch his words. “This time, no more faceless
legends. This time, tell me a tale from your own experiences of
justice and anger. I think that will help me more. Give me
something of yourself.”

The Second Gathandrian Legend: Justice
and Anger

Annyeke

“Why?” she asked him, her voice shaky and
high pitched. She hadn’t counted on this but, then again, she
hadn’t really counted on any of it. “The legends will give you the
history of our people and it is this that will draw you closer to
the centre of yourself, not anything I can tell you.”

Simon shook his head once more and sat down.
“I can read the legends well enough. If you grant me access to the
Gathandrian Library, then I can discover them there. I might even
be able to hear them from the page directly to my thoughts. Who
knows? There is magic enough in this land, as far as I can see.
Anything I need to ask you about them, I will do. But surely what
will give me greater understanding about your—our—shared country is
how its people interpret it in their own lives. Isn’t that what
Johan taught me on the terrible journey to reach this city? Those
which give most strength and clarity are the personal stories we
carry? Surely it is through them that our goal is reached most
fully.”

He sat back in his chair and took a long
breath. He blinked at her and she felt his confidence seeping away.
It wasn’t the strangeness of that which held her most, though. It
was the fact that the mind-cane was now lying across his legs, at a
slight angle, the base of it by his left thigh and the silver top
near his right knee. She hadn’t seen it move there. Neither, she
felt, had he. And he still didn’t realise it. But, for a heartbeat
or two, it was as if Simon and the cane were one being, and the
most natural thing in Gathandria was for him to rest his right
hand, glowing a soft blue now, gently on its carving, anchoring it
to him by his touch so it would be ready for…

“By the gods!” Simon gasped and leapt to his
feet. He must have followed her gaze. The cane rolled off and
landed with a clatter on the stone cobbles of her kitchen floor. It
hissed and spat, sparking wild flame for a terrifying moment before
dancing as if insulted into the shadows of the room. The scribe
rubbed his legs as if he’d been burnt. The blue shade on his flesh
faded from sight.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“Y-yes,” he stammered before blushing.
“Annyeke, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No, please.” She brushed away his apologies.
There was no need for them, after all, and, in any case, she hated
an embarrassed man. They were always harder to deal with that way.
“I think you might be right. Perhaps we should try another approach
to your meditation training. The mind-cane seems to think so,
anyway.”

They stared at it but it didn’t react so
Annyeke opened her mouth to continue. However, it was Simon who
spoke first, and not aloud.

Show me the justice and anger in your fear of
the raven, he said in his thoughts.

No. Her refusal was instinctive but, even
before its echo had died away, she sensed her resolve vanishing.
What gave her the right to assume that only she knew the road to
their destination? When she stared at the scribe, she could see he
was shaking, but at least he’d had the courage to share his mind
with her. She, Annyeke Hallsfoot, was not going to let a day pass
when a man had acted in a braver fashion than herself. Not while
she still breathed.

“Perhaps you are right then,” she said, with
a wave of her hand. “I will tell you. Though I cannot see how the
themes of the Second Legend can fit with my own simple tale—one of
childishness and cowardice, I should warn you.”

Her companion smiled. “Believe me, I’m used
to both those attributes.”

She thought he might be about to say
something else, but when the silence drifted back, she nodded and
drew up a stool to the table. For telling one’s life to a near
stranger, it was always important to be comfortable.

As she arranged her skirts and prepared
herself, she gazed round at the familiar surroundings of her
cooking place. Green and yellow walls, shelves of herbs and
spices—most empty now, unstocked since the war and the land’s
despair—a scattering of pots and dishes for baking, some that had
once belonged to her mother. She liked the direct simplicity of it.
In the past, Johan had sometimes wondered why she didn’t change it
to keep up with the latest Gathandrian fashions, in the days when
fashion had been deemed important, but Annyeke marched to a
different beat. The ease of her kitchen and, indeed, of her whole
home, gave her the freedom to be herself. Besides, she had never
yet allowed a man to dictate to her in matters of style—only,
perhaps, in matters of the mind or the heart.

I think you shouldn’t tell your story out
loud, Simon said. I think you should tell me directly.

That must have been what he’d wanted to say
in the silence, she thought, and smiled as he nodded his
agreement.

As you wish, she answered him. It begins like
this… And then, suddenly, and without fully expecting it, she was
there, back in her early childhood memories, back with her hatred
of birds.

*****

Annyeke’s first memory was not of her
parents, but of her grandmother. Her name had also been Annyeke, a
name that meant song of grace in the old languages. Unlike Annyeke
herself, her grandmother had always been known as Yeke. Song. A
word the woman had never lived up to, and neither had Annyeke,
whose singing voice could, at best, be described as gravelly. But
at least she’d kept the true length of her name. She felt she
deserved it.