The Gift (43 page)

“We’re not going to hurt you, Hem,” she said. “I promise. I
promise.
” She stretched out her arms and took the boy from Cadvan. He was almost as tall as she was, and she sat awkwardly with the child in her lap, her arms around his waist. “I promise,” she said. Hem twisted his head away from her hand, but didn’t get out of her lap.

“Then why do you speak like that?” said Hem viciously. “That’s witch’s cant.”

Cadvan was still standing, rubbing his arm where he had been bitten. “Nay, Hem,” he said. “I think you understand it, yes? Perhaps it is a little frightening, when the beasts speak to you?”

The boy shook his head violently, but Maerad knew he lied.

She looked at him again. With a shock, she realized that the “glow” that had so puzzled her was the sign that the boy had the Gift, as she did; and like her, he knew almost nothing about it. Cadvan was shaking his head and pacing up and down restlessly.

“If I find any more baby Bards in the wild, I shall give up traveling,” he said at last. “I’m not running a School.” He sat down by them and looked hard at Hem. “Hem, believe me, we are not Black Bards. I think you mean those we call Hulls, and if so, I don’t know why you were being hunted by them. I’ve never heard of them kidnapping child Bards, though I suppose that’s not impossible. I have no idea at all why they would be hunting Pilanel. Just be sure that they are hunting Maerad and me as well, and we have as little desire to run into them as you. And if our danger is increased by helping you, I would like to know why.” He rubbed his hair so it all stood up on end, and then hid his face in his hands.

For a while all three were silent. Then Hem got awkwardly off Maerad’s lap and sat cross-legged. He looked at Cadvan, who was watching him closely now, ready to move quickly if he ran.

“You don’t feel . . . bad,” Hem said. He paused, and then said with a rush, “The witch’s cant came to me two years ago. I had to keep it secret, or else I’d be drowned. And then the Black Bard was at the house and he knew and he tried to make me, tried to make me . . .” He stopped, and his face twisted with the effort to speak. At last he whispered: “He tried to make me come with him, and when I wouldn’t he said he would tell them so they would kill me, and when he laughed at me it was like knives going in. And I ran away.”

Maerad looked at Cadvan, totally perplexed; but Cadvan’s face was dark. “You don’t have to tell us about it now,” he said. “Later, if you wish to. But, Hem, I am very anxious to know where these Hulls, these Black Bards, came from, and why they were hunting the Pilanel family. Were they hunting you? Or were they after something else?”

The boy bent down over himself. “No, they weren’t hunting me,” he whispered. “Sharn stole something from them, and they wanted it back. And then he was afraid, and that’s why we came out to the wilds. They didn’t know about me.”

“Are you sure?”

The boy nodded. Cadvan took his chin in his hand and forced Hem to stare him in the eyes; the boy stared back with an air of defiance, and at last Cadvan let him go, his face shadowed.

“What did he steal, that the Hulls so wanted?”

“I don’t know.”

Maerad knew again that Hem was lying, but Cadvan didn’t pursue the point. Hem told them that the Hulls were at Imrath, near the Aldern, and that there were five of them. They had arrived a year or so before, and lived like lords in the house of Laraman, the mayor, and went about in the guise of worthies. There was much sickness around, and other problems, so little notice had been taken of them; but Hem had seen them and recognized them. What Sharn had taken from them, or why, he wouldn’t say; and he would say nothing more about his earlier dealings with the Hulls. His answers troubled Cadvan, but he didn’t press him. Maerad, watching anxiously, said abruptly, “Why don’t you just scry him?”

Cadvan looked up swiftly. “Against his will?”

“Why don’t you let Cadvan scry you, Hem?” Maerad looked directly into the boy’s face, but he wouldn’t look at her.

“I’m not letting any smutty witch scramble my brains,” hissed Hem, tensing up as if he were about to run again. “I’ve heard of what they do.”

Cadvan looked eloquently at Maerad, and she gave up the idea. “No scrying then, Hem,” he said gently. Hem seemed to believe him, and relaxed.

They talked little more that night, and soon Maerad curled up with Hem under her blanket and went to sleep. The boy lay very still until he slept, but in his dreams he turned and twisted and cried out until Maerad put her arms around him to hold him still; and at last he relaxed and breathed quietly against her.

They spent most of the following day toiling uphill, and at last reached the crest of a mighty ridge. On its other side the land fell away in a wide valley, and through the middle of the valley ran the silver thread of a broad river. To reach the river they had to leave the shelter of the rocky tors and descend a hillside bare of anything except short turf and heather punctuated by large boulders. They stood in the lee of a big rock, and Cadvan surveyed the country. Nothing moved before them, and if a rabbit had run across that expanse, they would have seen it.

“We must cross this valley, and it will be hard to do so unseen if anyone is watching,” said Cadvan. “This is the Aldern River. On its other side, over that ridge, we will strike people again. It is, or was, rich country with many farms and towns. The only way across is that bridge.”

Maerad squinted down and saw the tiny span of a bridge across the river and a road that wound through the valley and then ran along the river on the near side. She heard and saw nothing in that empty country except the high cawing of crows, but she was assailed by a fresh sense of menace.

“I think the bridge is watched,” said Cadvan.

They retreated back off the ridge and ate a meal behind a rock. It was late in the day; shadows were already drawing in, and a chill was in the air. Cadvan looked at the clouds.

“It may be we’re in luck,” he said. “I think it’s going to rain.”

They finished their meal and waited for the sun to go down. Just as it sank beneath the horizon, the rain started: a heavy, driving deluge that soaked them almost instantly and then froze them through their clothes with a cruel wind. Before long it was completely dark; there was no moon this early and the sky was only a lighter darkness over the black hill. Cadvan waited another hour, while they huddled miserably against the rock trying to escape the worst of the downpour, and then led them over the ridge into the valley. A blast of wind nearly knocked them over as they crossed the top.

They went slowly, leading the horses, fearing to lose each other in the darkness and worried that a horse might stumble on one of the stones. Hem sat on Darsor, miserably huddled in his cloak, his bare feet like ice. It was so dark they almost had to feel their way. Gradually Maerad’s eyes adjusted and she could make out dim shapes and outlines before her feet. After about an hour the wind eased and it was not as bitter, although the rain continued in a steady cascade. Maerad was so tired she felt dizzy, and all her senses were dulled by the punishing cold.

They reached the bottom of the valley, and Maerad could hear the river rushing before them, although she couldn’t see it. They had lost their direction slightly in the dark and had to turn right to find the bridge; but at last they were walking on a road again, which was less hard on their legs. Then the sound of their steps changed, and Maerad knew they were passing over the bridge. She looked to her side and saw the water rushing beneath them, a faint gray glimmer between the utter blackness of its banks. The wind blew chill off the surface of the water.

It was a broad stone bridge called the Edinur, made centuries before in the great days of building in Annar. The road was now little used and if Maerad had been able to see it, she would have perceived that it had fallen into disrepair. At the highest point of its span was carved the image of a woman’s face, her hair rippling off into stony waves of water down the wide arch; but her face had almost crumbled out of recognition and the ripples of her hair were mere runnels in the stone. Despite this, the Edinur Bridge was sturdy, and they crossed safely to the other side and followed the road up along the other side of the valley; the first Maerad knew of this was that the road surface changed again, and then they were going uphill. It was easier going up than down because they had a road to follow, and they stumbled less often. Halfway up the valley the moon rose, waxing toward full, and the clouds tore open and released a wavering light, easing their way, although Cadvan looked anxiously up and hurried them on.

They reached the top of the ridge after midnight, and the rain ceased altogether, but it became colder and the wind blew bitterly again, chilling them to the bone.

Before them Maerad could see the black shapes of trees. They went off the road a little and found a copse, dripping and black, and rested there; but it was so cold and they were all so wet that none of them could sleep except in short, fitful dozes. The horses stood shivering close together, their tails jammed between their legs. Hem was so stiff with cold that he had to be lifted off Darsor, his teeth chattering. Cadvan rubbed his feet until a little life came back into them, and they all drank some medhyl, which warmed them; but they could do nothing about the wind, which whirled about the copse loosing showers of water onto them from burdened leaves.

“Welcome to Edinur,” said Cadvan ironically. “Perhaps things will improve when the sun gets out of bed. But perhaps not. I am not sure what we will find here.”

The sun rose, reluctantly at first, sending pale glimmers of light that only made the world look more desolate and cold. But then it swung clear of the clouds, and bright rays fell and sparkled on the wet land, throwing up a blinding shimmer from the puddles. They looked around them. They were in a small beech wood, and the road was visible from where they had huddled the night before. Cadvan moved them deeper into the woods, finding a broad glade where the sun shone unimpeded. There they stripped and changed into dry clothes and stretched out their wet clothes to dry in the sun. Hem huddled in a blanket; he had no spare clothes, and he looked ill. Cadvan examined him with concern and gave him some more medhyl; after that the boy’s teeth stopped chattering, and a little color came into his face. They were all gray with exhaustion and ate their meager breakfast wordlessly. Maerad felt too tired to chew. She ached all over, and the chill was set so deep in her bones she thought she would never get rid of it. But it seemed the sun was determined to make up for its absence the day before and strengthened until it was hot. Their clothes steamed on the grass and Maerad relaxed, feeling the sun’s healing warmth on her shoulders. Hem began to look a little better, but he had a bad cold and could not stop sneezing.

Cadvan asked Maerad to watch, and disappeared with Darsor in the direction of the road. She sat drowsily in the sunshine, happy to do nothing and move nowhere. Hem got dressed again, hiding behind a shrub in an agony of modesty, and then stretched under a blanket and slept all day in the sun. After an hour or so Cadvan returned.

He and Maerad talked quietly so they would not wake Hem. Cadvan had ridden down the road to a village some five miles away and had spoken to a few people. Strangers were unwelcome, greeted with distrust and suspicion, and he thought it would not be wise to stay in any inn. Maerad’s heart sank at this, as she had been looking forward to a bed. They were to travel through Edinur by night, avoiding people as much as possible. He wanted now to use the road, rather than risk further delay. And the boy complicated matters.

“I thought at first we might find some farmhouse that might be glad to take him,” said Cadvan. “But now that we know he has the Gift, we can’t leave him; he should be trained as a Bard, and we should take him to a School, to be healed and taught. And now, also, he knows we’re Bards, and if he went his own way, word might spread to the Hulls, for I’ve no doubt what he calls the Black Bards are Hulls. For the meantime, I think we’re stuck with him. The nearest School from here is Norloch itself.”

“No, we can’t leave him,” agreed Maerad, looking at the sleeping huddle. “He should stay with us.”

“Maerad, it’s been exercising my mind that we should have found him; it was something that called to you, not to me, and I can’t think it is chance,” Cadvan said. “Somehow he is bound up in our fate. He looks as if he were of the Pilanel; if that is true, his people came a long time ago from farther north, from Zmarkan past the Lir River. They are an ancient race of great wisdom and nobility, though they care not for stone houses and riches. They used to produce many fine Bards, although much has fallen into forgetting, even among them; if they drown any with the Speech, then they are indeed decayed in their Knowing.” Cadvan lay on his back, clasping his hands together behind his head. “I think Hem’s story is a hard one, and he has suffered more than any child should; and I fear he is so scarred by it that trust will be hard to make between us, if we can make it at all. It was hard enough with you, Maerad.” He smiled across at her.

Maerad smiled back, and the hurt of their quarrel, which she had been nursing like a bruise, dissolved within her. Suddenly she felt lighter than she had in days since they had entered the Valverras.

“He lies, I know,” she said. “But I like him; there’s something about him; it’s like I
know
him. . . . And I feel so sorry for him. He’s so lost, and so young.”

“Yes,” said Cadvan, reflecting privately that in ways Hem wasn’t so different from Maerad. “But even so, there is a blackness in him that it would be well to be wary of. I would like to know what he was doing with the Hulls. I think he has not been honest with us about them, and I fear that he might put them on our trail. Or that, in hunting him, they may find us.”

“But he’s running away from them too,” said Maerad.

“But why?” said Cadvan. “I’m deeply troubled, Maerad. I can’t help but believe he somehow means peril for us.”

A little later they woke Hem and made a meager repast of dried meat and fruit. Cadvan had bought some fresh bread at the village, and this was a welcome addition; Maerad thought hungrily of the meals they had eaten in Innail and Rachida, and wished again they could stay at an inn and enjoy some comfort.