Morningstar (5 page)

“What is the difference?”

“I could not possibly explain it to you. My talents are from within and will harm no one. Indeed, they could not cause pain. They are illusions. I could make a knife and thrust it into your heart. You would feel nothing, and no harm would come to you. But if … one of them were to do the same, your heart would be filled with worms and you would die horribly.”

“So,” he said, “you will not play the shell game. Well, what else can you do?”

“I play the harp.”

“Yes, I heard that. Very … soulful. Sadly, bard, I think you are going to starve to death. Gods, it is cold!” Adding more fuel to the fire, he once more held out his hands to the flames.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I have forgotten my manners.” Lifting my right hand, I pointed at him and spoke the words of minor enchantment that warmed the air within his clothes.

“Now,
that
is a talent!” he exclaimed. “I hate the cold. How long will the spell last?”

“Until I fall asleep.”

“Then stay awake for a few hours,” he ordered me. “If I wake up cold, I’ll cut your throat. And I mean that! But if I sleep warm, I’ll treat you to a fine breakfast. Is it a bargain?”

“A fine bargain,” I told him, but he was immune to sarcasm.

“Good,” he said, and without another word stretched himself out on the ground beside the fire and closed his eyes.

I leaned back against the broad trunk of an oak tree and watched the sleeping man, my thoughts varied but all centered on Jarek Mace. My life as a bard and a storyteller had been filled with tales of men who looked like Jarek, tall and spectacularly handsome, confident and deadly in battle. It had almost become second nature in me to believe that a man who looked like him must be a hero. Part of me still wanted—needed—to believe it. Yet he had spoken with such lack of care about the poor dead woman back in Ziraccu. I did not know her, yet I could feel her grief as she tied the noose around her neck. I tried to tell myself that he did care, that he felt some sense of shame but was hiding it from me. But I did not believe it then, and I do not believe it now.

He had been drawn to my fire by the sound of the harp, but he had come to rob a lone traveler. And had I been carrying a coin, I don’t doubt he would have taken it and left me, throat slit, on the snow of the forest floor.

Now he lay still, his sleep dreamless, and I, frightened of his threat, remained awake, my spell keeping him warm.

I thought back to our conversation and realized that I had seen yet another Jarek Mace. His speech patterns were subtly altered. In Ziraccu he had sounded for the most part like an Angostin, except in those moments when anger had flared and his voice had lost its cultured edge. Now, in these woods his speech carried the slight burr of the Highlander. I wondered if he even realized it. Or did he, like the chameleon, merely adjust his persona to suit his surroundings?

A badger moved warily across the hollow, snuffling at the snow. She was followed by three cubs, the last of which approached the sleeping man. I created a small globe of white light that danced before the cub’s eyes, then popped. The cubs scampered away, and the mother cast me a look that I took to
be admonishment. Then she, too, disappeared into the bleak undergrowth.

I was hungry again and growing cold. Two spells of warming were hard to maintain. Banking up the fire, I moved closer to the flames.

My father’s castle on the south coast would be warm, with heavy velvet curtains against the narrow windows, huge log fires burning in the many hearths. There would be wine and spirits, hot meats and pastries.

Ah, but I forget, ghost! You do not yet know me save as the threadbare bard. I was the youngest of three sons born to the second wife of the Angostin count, Aubertain of WestLea. Yes, an Angostin. Neither proud nor ashamed of it, to be sure. My eldest brother, Ranuld, went to live across the sea, to fight in foreign wars. The second, Braife, stayed at home to manage the estates, while I was to have entered the church. But I was not ready to wear the monk’s habit, to spend my life on my knees worshiping a God whose existence I doubted. I ran away from the monastery and apprenticed myself to a magicker named Cataplas. He had a twisted back that gave him constant pain, but he performed the Dragon’s Egg like no one before or since.

That, then, was me, Owen Odell, an Angostin bard who in that dread winter was unable to make a living and who was sitting against a tree, growing colder by the moment, while his powers were being expended on a heartless killer who slept by his fire.

I was not a happy man as I sat there, hugging my knees, my thin, stolen blanket wrapped tight around my bony frame.

An owl hooted in the branches above me, and Jarek stirred but did not wake. It was very peaceful there, I recall, beneath the bright stars.

Toward dawn Jarek awoke, yawned, and stretched. “Best sleep I’ve had in weeks,” he announced. Rolling to his feet, he gathered his bow and quiver and set off without a word of thanks for my efforts. My power had faded several hours before, and I had barely managed to keep Mace warm, while I was almost blue with cold. With shivering hands I threw the last small sticks on the fire and held my numbed fingers above the tiny flames.

The morning sky was dark with snow clouds, but the temperature
was rising. Standing, I stamped my feet several times, trying to force the blood through to the frontiers of my toes.

Walking deeper into the forest, I began to gather more fuel. The weight of the recent snow had snapped many branches, and the smaller of those I collected in my arms and carried to my campsite, returning for larger sections, which I dragged through the snow. The work was arduous, and I soon tired. But at least I was warmer now, save for my hands. The tips of my fingers had swelled against my nails and throbbed painfully.

But all my discomfort was forgotten when the three men emerged from the forest to approach my fire.

There are times when the eyes see far more than the mind will acknowledge, when the heart will beat faster and panic begins at the root of the stomach. This was such a time. I looked up and saw the three, and my mouth was dry. Yet there was nothing instantly threatening about them. They looked like foresters dressed in homespun wool, with leather jerkins and boots of soft hide laced at the front with leather thongs. Each of them carried a bow, but they were also armed with daggers and short swords. I pushed myself to my feet, sure in my heart that I faced great peril.

“Welcome to my fire,” I said, proud that my voice remained steady. No one spoke, but they spread out around me, their eyes cold, faces grim. They seemed to me then like wolves, lean and merciless. The first of them, a tall man, looped his bow over his shoulder and knelt beside the fire, extending his hands to the flames. “You are a bard?” he said, not looking at me.

“I am, sir.”

“I don’t like bards. None of us like bards.”

It is difficult to know how to react to an opening like that. I remained silent. “We come a long way in search of your fire, bard. We seen it last night, twinkling like a candle, built where no sensible man would. We walked through the night, bard, expecting a little coin for our trouble.”

“I have no coin,” I told him.

“I can see that. It makes me angry, for you’ve wasted my time.”

“How can you blame me?” I asked him. “I did not invite you.”

He glanced up at one of the others. “Now he insults us,” he
said softly. “Now he says we’re not good enough to share his fire.”

“That’s not what I said at all.”

“Now he calls me a liar!” snapped the man, rising and moving toward me, his hand on his dagger. “I think you should apologize, bard.”

It was then that I knew for certain they planned to kill me.

“Well?” he asked, pushing in close with his hand on his dagger. His breath was foul upon my face, his expression feral. There was nothing to say, and so I said nothing. I heard his knife whisper from its sheath, and I tensed myself for the lunge.

Suddenly his head jerked, and I heard a soft thud and the crack of split bone. I blinked in amazement, for an arrow had sprouted from his temple. He stood for a moment, then I heard his knife drop to the snow; his hand slowly moved up to touch the long shaft jutting from the side of his head. His mouth opened, but no words came, then he sagged against me and slid to the ground with blood seeping from his shattered skull.

The other two men stood transfixed.

And Jarek Mace appeared from behind a screen of bushes, walking forward to the fire with his bow looped over his shoulder. Ignoring the corpse, he approached the two men. “Good morning,” he said, his voice smooth, his smile in place. “It is cold, to be sure.”

In that moment everything changed. The two robbers, who had looked so threatening and tough, appeared suddenly to have lost their power. I looked hard at them but could see only unwashed peasants, confused and uncertain. What strength they had had was gone from them, their power leached away. They were wolves no longer.

“I think,” said Jarek Mace, “it is time for you to move on. You agree?”

They nodded but said nothing. “Good,” Mace told them. “Very good. Leave your bows behind and take the body with you.”

Dumbly they dropped their bows to the ground, then walked slowly to where I stood. They did not look at me but hauled the corpse upright and half carried, half dragged it away.

Within moments the little clearing was bare, and apart from the dropped bows and the blood by my feet there was no sign of the intruders.

“Thank you,” I managed to say.

“You are most welcome,” said Mace, “but it was nothing.”

“You saved my life. He would have killed me.”

“Yes. Now for the breakfast I promised you.”

“Breakfast? Shouldn’t we be gone from here? They might come back with others.”

“They won’t come back, bard,” he assured me.

“How can you be certain?”

“They don’t want to die.” Standing, he strolled back to the bushes, returning with a small deer slung across his broad shoulders. Thankfully he had already gutted and prepared it, but even then I could not tear my eyes from the deer’s delicate features. I have no aversion to eating venison, but I prefer it skinned and boned. It does my digestion no good at all to see the meat in its original form, and it is hard to appreciate food when its owner’s head lies close to your fire.

Even so, the meat was good, and Jarek cut the remaining portions and wrapped them in the hide for later use.

“Well, what are your plans?” he asked me as we finished our breakfast.

I shrugged. “I was told there was a village some six miles to the north. I intend to walk there and try to earn my supper.”

“And then?”

“I have thought no further on the subject. I would have starved in Ziraccu had I stayed much longer. Perhaps I will try for the ports and seek passage south.”

He nodded. “That’s good thinking. No one in his right mind would want to stay in this war-torn land. Is your power returned yet? I’m getting cold.”

“No,” I lied, basking in magick warmth. “Not for another hour, maybe two.”

“Then let us be moving,” he grunted, pushing himself to his feet and swinging the hide sack to his shoulder. Taking up my harp bag, I walked alongside him.

“Where are we going?”

“To the village you spoke of. I have friends there.”

I said nothing more and trudged silently behind him down the narrow trails through the trees. After a while we heard voices and laughter and emerged into a clearing beside the forest road.

It was a scene of murder and pillage. A score or more of rough-garbed woodsmen were moving among the bodies of the
slain, ripping away rings and boots, cloaks and jerkins. Two wagons stood by, piled high with furniture and chests. I glanced at the dead—several men, three women, and beyond the road a monk in a bloodstained habit with an ax still jutting from his back.

“Good morning, Wulf,” called Jarek, striding across the murder site and hailing a hunchback with a forked beard.

The man looked up and grinned. “It is so far, Mace,” he said. Lifting a small hand ax, he brought the blade down on the hand of the dead man below him. I grunted in shock as the fingers were sliced in half. The hunchback lifted them, pulling the rings loose before discarding the shattered bones. “Who is your squeamish friend?”

“He is a bard and a magicker,” Jarek told him. Then he pointed at the corpse. “You’ve missed an earring.”

The hunchback grunted and tore the gold loose; the dead man’s head flopped in the snow. “I wouldn’t have missed it for long,” Wulf muttered. “What’s in the hide?”

“Venison.”

“Looking to share it with friends?”

“Are you looking to buy it?”

The hunchback let out a cackling laugh. “Why should I not take it? There’s twenty of us, and only a fool would fight. You are no fool.”

“No. I am not,” Jarek agreed, smiling. “But I would kill you, Wulf, then offer to share it with the others. You think they’d fight to avenge you?”

“Nah,” said the hunchback. “What do you say to this here brooch?” His bloody hand flicked the gold through the air. Jarek caught it with his left hand, then hefted it for weight.

“Nice. It’s a bargain.” Dropping the sack, Jarek walked on, stepping over the body of the priest. I hurried after him, keeping my mouth shut and my disgust to myself until we were some distance from the scene.

“At least he didn’t rape the women,” said Jarek. “He’s very moral that way.”

“Are you using that as an excuse for him?”

“He doesn’t need me to excuse him,” he answered. “Wulf is a woodsman—and a good one. But the war has taken its toll, even in the forest. The Count of Ziraccu needed money to hire his mercenaries. So even a count has a limited income: he could
not afford to maintain his work force here. Wulf has no job now. Food supplies are scarce, and prices have risen fourfold. He has a family to feed yet no coin to buy food. What else could he do but take to the road?”

“He has become a murderer!”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”

“You condone the murder of innocent women?”

“I didn’t kill them,” he said. “Don’t vent your anger on
me
.”