The Bone Queen (34 page)

As he relived them, these memories were vivid and raw to Cadvan, as if they had happened the week before. Only the death of Ceredin hurt more. How many people had he wounded? Was it worse to harm those who loved you? What about the strangers who had suffered, who had died, because of what he had done? They had been loved too, and their pain was no less.

He thought of Juna’s words.
Love isn’t about deserving. It just is.
He felt them as a brand on his soul. No one who loved him had escaped. No matter what he did with his life from now on, some things could never be atoned.

Perhaps because Dernhil knew the worst of him, Cadvan found his companionship comforting. Dernhil guessed much of what troubled him; after the scrying, he knew Cadvan almost as well as he knew himself. Maybe, Dernhil thought, he knew him better, because he could stand outside his guilt and see him whole. Sometimes, in a small but generous gesture or in his unexpected smile, Dernhil saw a grace within Cadvan that touched and surprised him. And he was grateful for Cadvan’s healing; without that nightly succour, he knew he wouldn’t have withstood their journey. Cadvan was correct when he rebuked Dernhil for not taking sufficient care of himself; he resented his bodily weakness and preferred to ignore trivial pains. Each night now he slept dreamlessly, and he felt his muscles knitting together, finding new strength. In truth, for all his tiredness, he felt better than he had for months.

He wondered at the fate that had blighted Cadvan’s life. Sometimes Nelac had spoken of it as a plan of the Dark, that had seen in Cadvan a gateway to its own ends; if so, then Cadvan had been merely a pawn, however willing. And there were more disturbing thoughts. Yes, sorcery was forbidden to Bards, and for good reason; yet if Cadvan had not known the spell that Likod had woven to destroy Lirigon, not one of them would now be alive. How to riddle that? Dernhil reflected that the machinery of the Light had as little mercy as the Dark; it seemed to him that Cadvan was pincered between the two. The White Flame, the centre of Barding, was very cold.

None of the Bards spoke much at first; the events in Lirigon had left them weary to the depths of their souls, and the long days gave them no respite. Of all of them, Nelac felt it most: the victory over Likod had come at a high cost. Over the first three days, Selmana noticed that both Dernhil and Cadvan were covertly watching him, subtly slowing their pace if he slumped in the saddle. He was never permitted to keep watch at night. She understood their concern; new lines were carved deep in Nelac’s face from his nose to his mouth, and his eyes seemed sunken in his head. At night, when they stopped to rest, he barely spoke at all. She was astonished by the iron will that drove him on.

Gradually the deathly greyness began to ebb from Nelac’s face, and she felt like weeping with relief. Over the past months, she had come to love him, and his frailty hurt her. She understood why he was so beloved of his students; he wore his learning lightly, unlike many Bards who were far less distinguished, and was endlessly patient. And he was funny; no teacher had ever made her laugh so much, or made learning a thing of such pleasure. He was like the father she would have loved to have. Even as the thought rose, she felt ashamed; her father was her father, and he was owed her respect. But he had never understood her as Nelac did, and she hungered for that understanding.

Once they left the Fesse, there were no more roads. They followed a series of winding tracks, always northwards. Sometimes there was not even a path, and their progress was agonizingly slow as the horses picked their way through moors tumbled with boulders or through woodlands tangled with brown bracken that brushed the horses’ bellies. Cadvan, who by tacit consent was guiding them, never seemed to doubt his direction. On the fourth day they reached the track that ran along the foothills of the Osidh Elanor, a byway mostly used by the Pilanel people, and after that their journey was easier. They saw birds and foxes and hares and once, in the distance, a pack of hunting wolves, but they encountered no people at all.

As the days passed, Selmana found herself fascinated by Cadvan and Dernhil’s friendship. They were very different, but she perceived a likeness in them all the same, a quickness of spirit that flowed above private depths. She knew their history, as did everyone in Lirigon, and was at first surprised to see the easy companionship that had grown between them. Cadvan checked Dernhil’s wellbeing each evening, joking that he would never forgive him if he collapsed; they would sit a little apart from the other two, talking softly as Cadvan wove his healcharms. If she overheard scraps of their conversation, it was never about anything important: trivial things that had happened that day, or some abstruse joke. But she felt the current of feeling that ran between them, and wondered.

“I thought they were enemies,” she said one night to Nelac.

“On the contrary,” said Nelac. “Those two were fated to be friends. The shame is that it took so long.”

Selmana drew a deep breath. “It would take me a long time to forgive something like that,” she said. “If I ever could.”

“I’m not certain that Dernhil has forgiven him,” said Nelac. “I think he has discovered that he likes and trusts Cadvan. If there is one good thing that has happened in the past days, it is that.”

Selmana frowned. “You know, Nelac, I don’t understand how you can be friends with a person who has done you such wrong, if you have not forgiven them.”

“That wrong still stands,” said Nelac. “Myself, I think it will take Dernhil a long time to forgive Cadvan. It is not an easy thing. One can love and even trust, and not forgive.”

“I guess I don’t understand people very well sometimes. I don’t understand anything very much.” Selmana hunched her cloak closer around her.

Nelac cast her an amused look. “In your own way, my daughter, you are much wiser than I am,” he said. “Think of what Larla said.”

Selmana gave him a fleeting smile. “That’s hard to believe,” she said. “I know so little, really.”

“No, it’s true,” said Nelac. “All you are is young, but age is no sure measure of Knowing. I know Bards far older than you, who have read many books and studied arcane lore, who have not your perception. And in some ways you are far beyond me. In this dark time, you are my lantern. You throw light where I see only shadows.”

Selmana stared broodingly into the campfire. All day she had been feeling homesick; it was a sharp ache through her whole body. She missed her mother, and she missed Lirigon. She worried uselessly about what was happening at home all the time, knowing that there was nothing she could do if anything was wrong. She wondered if Nelac suffered from homesickness; like all Bards, he travelled widely, but never with the fear, surely, that he might never be able to return… She glanced at him sideways. It still surprised her to see him squatting beside her, an old man stirring a pottage over a fire. Before she had met Nelac she had regarded him with awe, a great Bard far beyond her ken. If anything, her respect for him had increased; and yet in knowing him, the awe had vanished. He might be a great mage, but he was also a man, like any other man.

“What do I show you?” she asked. “It’s not like I see anything…”

“For one thing, you are showing me that the Bone Queen is nowhere near by,” he said. “And that is a comfort.”

None of them had mentioned Kansabur since they left Lirigon, and Selmana looked at Nelac in surprise. It was as if he had broken a silent agreement.

“How do I show you that?”

“You aren’t afraid.”

She drew in her breath, surprised and a little discomforted that, even as she had been studying the others, she too had been observed. But Nelac was right: she wasn’t afraid.

She had spent many of the numbing, cold hours of travel thinking over what had happened in Lirigon. From this distance, it seemed unreal. The hauntings that had stalked her in Lirigon, the vertiginous sense of a world that was no longer solid beneath her feet, had retreated. Maybe it was just that she was so tired; she wasn’t used to this kind of endurance riding and, even with the charms that Bards used when they travelled swiftly, every part of her hurt with unfamiliar strains.

The feeling of horrible visibility that had plagued her since she saw the dying boar had retreated. She only realized how oppressive it had been when it lifted: for weeks, some deep part of her had felt that a malignant eye was always searching for her. In the moment when she had glimpsed Kansabur in Larla’s kitchen, it had been intolerable. When they left Lirigon the edge of that horror blurred, and now was barely perceptible. But still she sensed that she was being hunted, that far away, in the distant shadows of the night, something was haunting her tracks… Selmana shuddered and unconsciously drew closer to Nelac.

“It’s a bit grandiose, to say that I’m wise,” she said. “Is a mouse wise for smelling a cat?”

Nelac smiled. “Yes, it is,” he said. “For one thing, the wise mouse doesn’t get eaten.”

I
N
only eight days, they reached the rutted track that branched off north to Jouan. Cadvan hesitated, and asked his mare, Brera, to halt. A wave of nostalgia swept over him, taking him by surprise. It was less than a month since he had left, and yet the friends he had made there, Taran and Hal and others, even his goat, Stubborn, had woven themselves into his life more deeply than he had realized, and he felt a tug of longing. Already his time there seemed so long ago… The others looked at him curiously, and pulled up their mounts beside him.

Only Dernhil knew why he had stopped. “Shall we ride on to Jouan?” he asked.

“It’s barely noon,” said Cadvan. “We’d find welcome and shelter there, I don’t doubt, but we’d lose a day.”

Selmana looked up hopefully at the mention of shelter. She was tired of travel rations and of sleeping on hard ground. She was tired of the rain and of cheering up her dispirited horse and of her numb hands and sore thighs and damp clothes. Even one night indoors would be a blessing.

Cadvan was having a silent debate with himself. For all his desire to see his Jouain friends, he felt a strange reluctance at the thought. Hal would at first think that he had returned as he had promised, his task done, ready to teach her. He could see how her face would fall, how she would pretend it didn’t matter. He couldn’t bear the prospect: Hal was too used to disappointment. He should return properly, or not at all.

“No, now is not the time,” he said at last, and spoke again to Brera, urging her on. Selmana slumped back in her saddle.

“Why not?” said Nelac unexpectedly. “There’s an inn, I assume?”

“Aye, for traders,” said Cadvan.

“The notion of a hearth and a table and a bed attracts me wonderfully. And we would travel the faster for the rest.”

“But we can’t afford to lose even a day.”

“We’re almost halfway to Pellinor, by my calculations; we’ve made good progress. We can afford a few hours.”

Cadvan glanced at him expressionlessly for a few moments and then shrugged, and turned Brera up the track. Selmana brightened up instantly. A bed! A roof! It seemed the summit of luxury. Nelac winked at her and urged his mount along the track behind Cadvan.

The sun still stood high in the sky when they reached Jouan. The mountains seemed very close today, lowering over the tiny hamlet, their peaks vanishing into mist. A knot of small children watched them as they rode to the tavern: they saw at a glance that these were not their usual visitors. At first they didn’t recognize Cadvan, but then a small boy, a cousin of Hal’s, set up a cry. “It’s Cadvan!” he said. “Hey, Cadvan!”

Cadvan waved and the boy ran off. He wasn’t surprised when Hal came running up, her face alight with joy, as they dismounted outside the tavern. She halted when she saw the other Bards.

“Hello, Hal,” said Cadvan.

“Hello, Cadvan,” she said. “You’re back, then?”

“Only for the night,” he said.

Just as he had imagined, Hal’s face fell. She swallowed hard. “In that case it – it was good of you to think of coming all the way here.” She glanced again at the other Bards. “I’ll go, I see you’re busy. But Taran will be so pleased to see you.”

She made to leave, but Cadvan stepped forward and embraced her. She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, and then stood back, uncertain and shy.

“It’s good to see you, Hal,” Cadvan said. “Why don’t you come to the tavern when we’ve taken care of the horses, and I’ll introduce you to my friends?”

“They look very grand,” she said. “I don’t think…”

“They’re no grander than me,” said Cadvan. “They’re only Bards. And besides, I want to know how you all are.”

A shadow passed over Hal’s face. “Taran will be that glad to see you,” she said again. “But he’s down the mine now. I’ll tell him you’re here when he gets home.”

“Is something wrong?”

But Hal just shook her head and left. Cadvan watched her run off. She was still half a child, the grown woman she would become nascent in her gangly legs and awkwardness. But she was old beyond her years, her life already tempered by hard losses. She deserved so much more…

The tavern keeper interrupted his reflections, coming out to welcome his visitors, and Cadvan turned to the business of hiring rooms and stables. When Jonalan recognized Cadvan his face lit up in welcome. “I must have known we’d have a visit,” he said. “I killed the pig for winter just two days since. I’ll roast a ham tonight and there’ll be a feast. Only one night! I could have wished it longer. You’ve been sorely missed.”

“You are well loved here,” said Dernhil later. They had washed and changed their clothes, and now he and Cadvan sat by the tavern’s big hearth, each with an ale at his elbow. For the moment, they were alone; Jonalan was off arranging for their filthy travelling gear to be cleaned and Selmana and Nelac were still both upstairs.

Cadvan glanced at Dernhil and shrugged. “As you know, I worked as a healer as well as a cobbler,” he said. “Bad at it though I was, I was still better than no healer at all…” He felt a strange reluctance, almost a shyness, in speaking about his time in Jouan, even to Dernhil.