The Gift (20 page)

“Mine?” said Maerad in amazement. “How?”

“Cadvan’s arrangement. Now, you know how to saddle a horse?”

Maerad’s ignorance of animals wasn’t nearly as woeful as it was of books, and after she had saddled and mounted Imi, Indik looked at her with an almost approving eye. He mounted his own horse, a large bay called Harafel, and they rode to a yard, where Indik put her through some paces, making her ride with her arms crossed and no stirrups, and running through some commands. Maerad rode mainly by balance which, as Indik acidly pointed out, would do no good if a troop of bandits suddenly appeared out of the bushes and scared the life out of her; but despite all his shouting, he seemed pleased when they finished.

“You’ll do fine,” he said. “A few months of training, and you’d make a good rider. You know enough to get around. It would be easier if you had the Speech, of course, but that will take care of itself.”

They rode back to the stables, and Maerad dismounted and unsaddled Imi. Then Indik asked her to groom the horse and clean her hooves, watching her critically. “You’ll need a traveling kit, of course,” he said, when she’d finished and loosed the mare into her stable. “But luckily you’re not a complete dolt. Two hours’ ride every day, to get you fit, and that’s all we can manage this time.”

Then it was time for swordcraft. This was a different matter altogether, and Indik didn’t bother to conceal his impatience. “Mistress Maerad,” he said through clenched teeth, as she dropped her sword yet again, “if you do not manage even to hold on to your weapon, you’re dog meat. Kindly get that through your thick head. Now, we’ll start again.”

An hour of sword practice left Maerad dripping with sweat — Indik insisted she wear her mail and helm — and feeling completely inadequate. She had learned, however, how to hold a sword both one- and two-handed, and that flailing wildly was a bad idea. “Intelligence,” Indik kept saying. “Intelligence is the key. You’re not strong enough to be stupid.
Think!
”

He gave the powerful impression that he thought Maerad would last about a mile out of Innail. When he finally ended the lesson, he leaned on his sword. “
One
hour’s riding, I think, and an extra hour of swordcraft. A week might make a difference. By the Light, I hope it does. At the moment my advice is to hide behind Cadvan if any trouble occurs, and don’t draw the sword at all. You’re just a liability.” Then he dismissed her to disconsolately find her own way back to her room.

In the refuge of her chamber she tiredly took off her mail and helm and laid her sword against the chest, where she eyed it doubtfully. It had a simple silver scabbard chased with the design of a snake wound around a tree, with a gleaming red stone for its eye; she had liked the sword well enough when Indik had chosen it for her, but now she wasn’t so sure. Her body ached with weariness in all sorts of unexpected places, and after sitting on her bed for a few minutes staring exhaustedly at the wall, she decided to go to the bathroom. Once there, the bath steaming with perfumed oils, she slid in with a sigh and watched the steam coil upward, thinking of absolutely nothing at all. At last she drew herself out, feeling refreshed, and padded back on bare feet to her room, where she dressed in clean clothes and drew her lyre out of the chest. She played it to console herself, and soon was so absorbed that when there was a knock at her door she jumped.

“Cadvan!” she said, letting him in.

“Yes, indeed,” he said. He looked a little grim. “How are your lessons?”

“Oh, all right, I suppose. I like Dernhil; he gave me this book — look — to read tonight. But I don’t think Indik likes me much.”

“It’s not his business to like you. He’s to teach you what he can, which he will, as he is a gifted teacher and a great swordsman. He does you great honor agreeing to teach you at all.”

“I didn’t mean . . .”

“The horse is to your liking? And this is your sword?”

“Imi is beautiful; I’ve never ridden such a fine horse,” said Maerad, casting a look of dislike at the sword. “Indik says I’m a liability with the sword and should just hide behind you.”

Cadvan laughed, losing his look of grimness. “It is your first day, after all, and he’s not used to beginners. But if anyone can teach you to be handy with a sword in a week, he can. You won’t learn any great skill, mind, but it’s good to know how to hold it, and even an inelegant slash well placed is help in a tight corner. But this is your sword now: you should give it a name.” He took it out of its sheath and examined it closely. “It’s actually very fine. He’s done you proud.” He handed it to her, hilt first.

“A name?” stammered Maerad, taking it. “Why? What sort of name?”

“I asked that you be given a well-forged blade. It’s not just a dirk hammered out in some rustic blacksmith’s forge, and it deserves the honor. Well . . .” Cadvan considered for a moment. “What about Irigan? Iceblade, in the Speech. It has a chill sheen.”

“Irigan,” said Maerad, trying it on her tongue. “Yes, that sounds all right. Irigan.” She was beginning to feel overwhelmed by owning things; she had never possessed more than the clothes on her back, a pair of boots, and her lyre. Suddenly she had a horse and a sword, like a rich person.

“Silvia’s arranging traveling gear and a pack,” Cadvan said. “They should be ready tomorrow.” He picked up the book Dernhil had lent Maerad and laughed.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

“It’s Dernhil’s own book. His poems. Read it carefully; Dernhil is a great poet, one of the best Annar has seen. I remember when we first met. . . .” He flipped the pages, idly looking through the poems, and fell silent.

“Remember what?” asked Maerad.

Cadvan grinned. “I was young and vain, and I rather fancied myself as a poet then. He was visiting Lirigon for some reason I forget, and he was already famous. He was very young, very talented. . . . I challenged him to a duel, a competition where we both had to improvise poems. I made such a fuss about it, practically the whole School was there.”

“And what happened?”

“I lost. For obvious reasons, if you read this book.”

Maerad felt a bit taken aback. How was she to know that Dernhil was famous? “But he said they were simple poems.”

“So they seem. But what appears simple is often the hardest to understand. Anyway,” he continued, “that’s not what I came here to say. We are invited to dinner with Malgorn and Silvia tonight, at the next bell. Silvia wants to know how you are, and how you are finding your teaching. She still disapproves of me mightily, but will overlook it for your sake. There’s a little time beforehand. Perhaps we could walk to the courtyard?”

“I’m supposed to practice reading tonight,” Maerad said uncertainly.

“Dernhil will understand if you can’t manage it. I expect you’re very tired. In the meantime, you and I should take the air.”

Maerad glanced curiously at Cadvan as they made their way to the courtyard in the balmy evening air. Perhaps it was just the growing darkness, which threw shadows across his face; but it seemed to her that he looked strained and even, perhaps, a little upset, although with Cadvan it was hard to tell. He was certainly hurrying her along. They sat down on the bench and Cadvan took a deep breath in and out, as if he were expelling something other than air, and looked up at the sky. One by one, the stars were beginning to open.

“It’s peaceful here,” he said, and was silent for a few moments, listening to the water trickling from the fountain into the pond and the chirping of birds settling to sleep in the eaves. “Maerad, time is very pressing over the next few days. I’ve arranged some basic lessons so you can learn at least something of the things you need to know. I wish with all my heart we could stay a few months, so you could get some proper grounding, but we can’t. If I could, I’d be off tomorrow.”

“Do we have to go so soon?” Maerad asked.

“Yes, the sooner the better. I find myself chafing at this delay, although it can’t be helped. I have business in Norloch, and nothing can be done or decided about you until we get there. It’s a long journey, and I wish you were better prepared. But need makes the naked man run, as they say.” He paused. “I’ve spent my time better than today, arguing with Bards. It’s wearisome and wasteful.”

“So it’s not going well?” Maerad studied Cadvan covertly; what was bothering him?

“No,” he said shortly. It seemed he was going to say nothing else, but then abruptly he added, “Maerad, there is a mort of gossip about my request to be your sole teacher. I thought I should warn you.”

“Gossip?”

“I seem to have scandalized half of Annar. Even Malgorn is dubious. They all think I’ve lost my head over a pretty face.” He gestured impatiently. “I guess that if the mean-minded speak ill, perhaps it’s all to the good: it conceals any other purpose. But I confess I have no patience with such pettiness; I feel smirched. . . .”

Maerad was staring at him with bafflement, but then she suddenly grasped what Cadvan was saying. “Oh!” she gasped, and then she blushed scarlet.

“It doesn’t matter, Maerad,” Cadvan said, giving her a satirical look. “It just annoys me; Bards should be above such trivial rumor. What matters is that you do your lessons as well as you can over the next few days and don’t let any malicious comments upset your studies. I think you are talented; it’s certainly what Dernhil told me, and Indik thought so, even if he wouldn’t tell you. I must attend the Councils; the more news I hear the better, especially if we are traveling by hidden paths. I won’t leave before it ends. In any case, if we did leave earlier, secrecy would be impossible. So just trust me for the moment; things will be clearer once we leave here. Don’t think I’ve suddenly deserted you!”

“All right. It’s fun studying anyway,” Maerad said. She looked straight at Cadvan. “I just wish I knew what is really happening. There’s so much I don’t know, and all this fuss about me, and it all seems very strange.”

“I
will
tell you, or at least as much as I know,” said Cadvan. “I’m sorry to be so at sixes and sevens, and in such a rush. It needs time, for partly telling is no telling at all. There’ll be plenty of time on our journey.”

There was a short silence. “I had a strange dream last night,” Maerad said abruptly. “I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

Cadvan was leaning back, staring into the sky. “We all have strange dreams,” he said.

“Yes, but this was . . . It was odd, Cadvan, not like any dream I’ve had before. It felt, it felt . . .” Maerad gestured helplessly and fell silent.

“Well, what was it, then?” Cadvan sat up and gazed at her attentively.

Slowly, trying to find the right words, Maerad told him of her dream. As she spoke on, Cadvan became very still, listening more and more intently. When she had finished, he said nothing for a while.

“How I wish you had the Speech!” he said at last. “I think it must have been the Speech you heard there, that tongue you did not understand. At least, it is likely.”

“What do you think?” asked Maerad curiously.

“Dreams are strange messengers, Maerad,” Cadvan answered. “Some say they come from beyond the Gates, where all that is and has been and shall be is known, for time does not exist there. But we all have different types of dreams, for different purposes.”

“So what do you think mine is?”

Cadvan hesitated. “I can’t be sure. But I think it was a foredream, a dream telling of what is to come.”

Maerad shuddered. “I hope not,” she said. “It was horrible. But why would I have a foredream? I’ve never had one before.”

“It’s a Gift of some Bards. Not many. Though a good many Pellinor Bards were foredreamers and seers. Lanorgil of Pellinor was probably the most famous, but there have been a few others.”

“Do you have foredreams?”

“No,” said Cadvan. “Though like all Bards I have a measure of foresight. But foredreams are perilous riddles to unravel; there are many stories of those who seek to avoid their prophecies, only to bring about what they most fear. But this seems to send both warning and hope.
Look to the North!
” He stooped to pluck a blade of grass and chewed it thoughtfully. “What could that mean?”

Maerad shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she answered. “That’s why I asked you.”

“It makes me more certain that I am right to think the Dark would pursue you, if they knew of you,” he said. “Perhaps news has reached them already.”

With a flash of perception, Maerad realized that Cadvan’s complaint about gossip was not the whole reason for his air of strain. She had a uneasy sense, like a boatman who has floated unawares into the deep ocean, of suddenly discovering opaque depths sliding beneath her feet, where she expected to see sunny shallows.

Cadvan stood up, throwing away the leaf of grass. “Now I chafe the more at lost days! But, for the moment, we are stuck here.” He checked the sky. “It’s almost time for the bell,” he said. “We should go in.”

THE next few days were taken up with the same routine: Dernhil in the morning and grimly comic sessions with Indik every afternoon, which ended with Maerad’s jaw jutting with mutiny, when she wasn’t on the verge of tears. Indik confined himself to pitiless witticisms on her martial stupidity, although by the third day Maerad no longer dropped her sword when she tried to parry his thrusts, and once almost made it through his defense. On that occasion, he merely doubled his sarcasm, and Maerad’s lips set in a grim line. She wished she had the swordcraft to make a fool of him, but he could disarm her as easily as if she were a five-year-old child. Although she always enjoyed her hour’s ride on Imi, Maerad much preferred her mornings with Dernhil, which were opening a new and exciting world.