Morningstar (6 page)

“But you were happy to trade with their killers.”

He stopped and turned to face me, the smile, as ever, in place. “You are angry, bard, but not with me. You were filled with horror back there, and loathing and disgust. But you said nothing. That is what is burning inside you … not the trade.”

I let out a long sigh and looked away.

“Come on,” he said cheerfully. “It is a short walk to the village.”

The village was a collection of some twenty-five dwellings, some of simple wood construction beneath sloping roofs of thatch, others more solidly built of clay, mixed with powdered stone, beneath wooden roofs weighted with large stones. They were all single-story but equipped with narrow lofts where the children slept. The settlement was situated on the western shore of a long lake, and a dozen fishing boats were drawn up on the mud flats by the water’s edge.

Jarek and I walked into the village, passing a group of children playing by the open doors of the central hall. There was much giggling as the youngsters, dressed in simple tunics and trews of wool—most of them grime-ingrained—chased each other around the building. An old man sitting in a narrow doorway nodded at Jarek and lifted a weary hand in greeting. Jarek waved and moved on.

A young girl, scarcely in her teens, watched us as we passed. Her blond hair was cropped close to her head, and her eyes were wide and frightened. She shrank back against the side of the building, her gaze locked to us. I smiled at her, and she turned and sped away between the houses.

“Ilka,” said Jarek. “The village whore.”

“She is but a child.”

“Fifteen or thereabouts,” he said, “but she was raped two
years ago in the forest and left to die. She is an orphan with no hope of marriage. What else could she become?”

“Why no hope of marriage? She is comely.”

“The rapists cut out her tongue,” he answered.

“And for that she is condemned?”

He stopped and turned to face me. “Why do you say condemned? She has employment, she earns her bread, she is not despised.”

I was lost for words. I could see from his expression that he was genuinely curious and lacked any understanding of the girl’s grief. Her future had been stolen from her, the gift of speech cruelly ripped from her mouth. Yet she was the one who faced a lifetime of punishment. I tried to explain this, but Jarek merely chuckled, shook his head, and walked on. I wondered then if I had missed some subtlety or overlooked an obvious point. But her face stayed in my mind, haunted and frightened.

We came at last to a narrow house built near the water’s edge. Beyond the dwelling was a tall net hut and a fenced area that had been dug over and shaped for a vegetable patch. Nothing was growing now, but inside the house there were sacks of carrots and dried onions and various containers filled with edible tubers that were unknown to me. It was a long one-room dwelling with a central hearth of fired clay and stone. Screens had been set around the hearth, and there were four rough-hewn seats close to the fire. Against the far wall was a wide bed. Jarek loosened the string of his bow and laid it against the wall, his quiver and sword alongside it. Shrugging off his sheepskin cloak, he sat beside the fire, staring into the flames.

“Who lives here?” I asked, pulling up a seat alongside him.

“Megan,” he answered, which told me little.

“Is she your lover?”

He chuckled and shook his head; he had a fine smile, warm and friendly. “You’ll meet her soon enough,” he said. “Show me some magick. I have been here for only a few moments, and already I’m bored.”

“What would you like to see?”

“I don’t care. Entertain me. Pretend I’m a full audience in a tavern.”

“Very well …” I sat back, thinking through my repertoire. Then I smiled. Before his eyes on the dirt floor a small building appeared, then another, and another. Between them was an alleyway.
A young girl, no taller than the length of my hand, came running into sight, pursued by ruffians. A brightly garbed young man carrying a harp entered the scene. “Stop that!” he cried, his voice thin and reedy and far away. The ruffians advanced on him, but suddenly a tall hero leapt from an upper balcony. He moved like a dancer, yet his sword was deadly, and soon the ruffians were either dead or fleeing. I let the scene fade from sight. It took great concentration, but to have enchantment merely vanish always seemed to me to be the mark of a clumsy magicker.

He was silent for a moment, staring at the dirt floor. “That’s good, bard,” he said softly. “That’s very good. Is that how it looked to you?”

“It did at the time.”

“How have you lived so long?” he asked me.

“What do you mean?”

“The romance in your heart. This world of ours is a garden of evil. You should have been a monk, locked away in some gray monastery with high walls and strong gates.”

“Life can be like the stories,” I said. “There are still heroes, men of great soul.”

“You have met them?”

“No, but that does not mean they do not exist. Manannan, the last knight of the Gabala, and Rabain the Vampyre slayer, both walked these woods, saw the stars above the same mountains. It is a dream of mine to see such a man, perhaps to serve him. A soldier or a poet, I do not mind. But someone with the courage to change this world, a man with a soul as bright as the last star of the morning.”

“Dream on, bard. Morningstar, indeed! You know much of weapons?”

“Very little. My older brothers were trained to be knights. Not I.”

“A morningstar is a terrible weapon. It has a short handle of iron, and attached to it is a chain; on the end of the chain is a ball of spiked metal. It is a kind of mace. When a man is struck by it, he dies, his skull smashed to fragments.”

“That is not the morning star I spoke of.”

“I know, but you spoke of a dream. I am giving you the reality.”

“Only your reality.”

“What is it you are looking for? Glory? What?”

I shrugged. “What do all men seek? I want to be happy. I would like a wife and sons one day. But I want them to grow in a land where there is hope for the future, where men do not take to the road. If that is a hopeless dream—and maybe it is—then I will sire no sons. I will wander, and play my harp, and weave my magick until the end.”

I expected him to laugh or to say something scornful. But somehow what he did was worse. He stood and walked to a nearby water butt, lifting a copper gourd and drinking deeply.

“You think the weather will break soon?” he asked me.

I did not answer him. I felt a sudden need for music and took my harp outside, walking to the water’s edge and sitting beside a long, narrow boat. The wind was rippling the water, and small sections of ice came floating by on the gray surface. Snow began to fall, and I played for the snow, my fingers plucking daintily at the shorter strings, the higher notes, the music drifting out over the lake. Darker, deeper tones crept in as the storm clouds gathered.

Several villagers came by as I played, but I ignored them. The first person I noticed was the whore, Ilka. She crept in close and sat hugging her knees, her huge blue eyes fixed to my face. The music changed as I saw her, becoming wistful and sad. She shook her head and rose, beginning a curious dance in the mud. I saw her then as a nymph, a magical eldritch creature trapped in a world that understood nothing. And the music changed again, lifting and swelling, still sorrowful but filled with a promise of new tomorrows.

At last my fingers became tired, and the music died. Ilka stopped, too, and looked at me with those wide, haunted eyes. Her expression was hard to read. I smiled and said something—I don’t remember what it was—but fear came back to her then, and she scampered away into the gathering dusk.

Toward evening I saw Wulf and his killers striding toward the village.

For a moment only I was filled with stark terror, but then I saw the children running up to meet them. The hunchback lifted one small boy high into the air, perching him on his twisted shoulder, and the sound of laughter filled the village.

Jarek was right, in part at least.

This forest was a garden of evil.

3

I
SEE THAT
you are quizzical, my ghostly friend. How, you wonder, does the laughter of children in such circumstances denote evil? Well, think on this … is it not comforting to believe that all acts of murder and malice are committed by brutes with no souls? Worshipers of unclean powers?

But how dispiriting to see a group of men coming home from a day of toil, ready to play for an hour with their children, to hold their wives close, to sit at their hearth fires, when their work has been the foul slaughter of innocent travelers. You take my point? Evil is at its most vile when it is practiced by ordinary men.

We can excuse a demon who stalks the night seeking blood. It is his nature; he was created for just such a purpose. But not a man who by day commits acts of murder and by night returns home to be a good, loving husband and father. For that is evil of a monstrous kind and casts doubts upon us all.

But I am running ahead of myself. Where was I? Ah, yes, the village by the lake. I had watched the whore dance, and I had seen the return of the village men. And now, as the winter sunlight faded, I was standing outside the hut staring out over the cold lake.

An old woman came walking across the mud flats. She was tall and thin, her bony body covered with a long woolen gown, her shoulders wrapped in a plaid shawl. Upon her head was a leather cap with long ear pieces tied with thongs beneath her chin. She was carrying a sack, and she walked with the long strides of a man. I took her to be more than seventy years old.

“Do you not bow in the presence of a lady, Owen Odell?” she asked, stopping before me.

I was shocked and did not move for a moment; then good manners reasserted themselves. “My apologies,” I said, extending my left leg and bowing low, sweeping my left arm out in a graceful half circle. “Have we met before?”

“Perhaps,” she answered, smiling. Her face was lined, but good high cheekbones prevented the skin from sagging. Her lips were thin, and her eyes, deep-set beneath shaggy brows, were bright blue. Forty years before she must have been a handsome woman, I thought.

“Indeed I was,” she said brightly. “Thank you for looking beyond the crone and seeing the true Megan.”

“You are a magicker, then?”

“Of sorts,” she agreed, walking past me to her hut.

Jarek was asleep on the bed. Megan carried her sack to the rear of the room, tipping the contents onto a wide table. All kinds of leaves and roots had been gathered, and these she began to separate into small mounds. I moved behind her, looking down at the first mound. I recognized the flowers instantly as eyebright, downy leaves with white petals tinged with violet and with a yellow spot at the center of the bloom.

“You are a herbalist also, madam?” I inquired.

“Aye,” she answered. “And doctor, meat curer, midwife. You know this plant?”

“My nurse used to make an infusion of its leaves for winter colds,” I told her.

“It is also good for preventing infection in wounds,” she said, “and for relieving swollen eyes.”

I cast my eyes over the other plants. There was wild thyme, figwort, dove’s foot, woundwort, sanicle, and several others I could not recognize.

“Your magick is strong, Megan,” I said.

“There is no magick in gathering plants,” she muttered.

“Oh, but there is when it is winter and none of them grow. You have a spell garden somewhere, and your enchantment works there even while you sleep.”

“You have a long tongue, Owen Odell,” she said, a short curved blade hissing from the leather scabbard at her waist, “and I have a sharp knife. Be advised.”

I looked into her eyes. “An empty threat, madam,” I told her, keeping my voice low.

“How would you know?” she asked. “You cannot read my thoughts.”

“No, but I like you, and that is purely on instinct. My magick may not be strong, but my instincts usually are.” She nodded, and her eyes lost their coldness. Smiling, she slipped the skinning knife back into its sheath.

“Aye, sometimes instincts are more reliable than magick. Not often, mind! Now make yourself useful and build up the fire. Then there are logs to be cut. You will find an ax in the lean- to behind the house. After that you can help me prepare the hanging birds.”