movement out of the corner of her eye. When she turned her head she saw a strange little being lurking under the table. Roughly human in shape, with purplish skin and a warty little face, it stood about two feet high. When it saw her looking its way, it stuck a bright red tongue out at her and wrinkled its nose.
‘My familiar,’ Maraladario said, ‘and a very rude little gnome, really.’ She snapped her fingers, and the gnome disappeared.
I saw him! Hwilli nearly blurted but managed to keep silence. Jantalaber, however, must have noticed, because he smiled and nodded, pleased.
‘So, you’re Hwilli.’ Maraladario sat down opposite her and considered her over folded hands. ‘Do you like studying dweomer, child?’
‘Very much, mistress. I’ve longed to study dweomer – well, not my whole life, perhaps – but as far back as I can remember.’
‘Very good. Tell me, suppose you gain great power in our craft. What will you do with it?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ Hwilli felt herself blush. Her answer sounded absolutely flat and silly to her own ears.
Maraladario, however, nodded as if she were taking it under serious consideration. ‘Honest of you,’ she said at last. ‘I suspect, though, that you’ll find out what to do with it once you gain it, assuming you do. There are great dangers on your road ahead, Hwilli. Once you finish the first studies, believe you me, there are dangers for all of us, whether Children of Air or Children of Aethyr.’
‘So I’ve been told, mistress.’
‘Good. Keep the dangers always in mind.’ Maraladario turned her calm emerald gaze on Jantalaber. ‘She has a strong aura. I think me you’ve chosen well.’
‘Thank you,’ the master said. ‘I have every hope she’ll succeed.’
‘Have you discussed our other plans with her?’
‘I have, if you mean the place of healing, but only briefly.’
‘Very well.’ She looked at Hwilli once again. ‘If we succeed in building this place of healing, it must be for everyone, not just the People, but your folk, and the dwarven folk of the Northlands, and yes, even the Meradan, those among them who prove worthy. Healing cannot be hoarded or begrudged, Hwilli. Your place in the work is crucial, because it means that your folk will have a share in the healing just as the People will. Do you understand that?’
‘I do, mistress.’ Hwilli swallowed heavily to clear her voice. ‘I’m frightened I won’t be worthy.’
‘Work hard, and you will be worthy.’ Maraladario glanced at Jantalaber. ‘Thank you for bringing your new apprentice.’
Jantalaber smiled and rose with a quick gesture to Hwilli to follow. The audience had ended.
That night, when Rhodorix came to her chamber, Hwilli considered telling him about her studies and in particular, the meeting with Maraladario, but he’d been drinking with the other guardsmen and seemed muddled. Besides, she suspected that talk of sorcery might frighten him, perhaps even turn him away from her. She’d had so little joy in her brief life that she lived in terror of losing what she now had: her healing knowledge, her dweomer studies, and a man of her own, a man of her own kind who still had as much honour as a fighting man of the People.
Instead of talk she let him fall asleep on her bed. For some while, though, she stayed awake, watching him by candlelight and thanking the gods for letting him love her.
‘You have to learn to ride wet and cold sooner or later,’ Rhodorix told his men. ‘Today’s a good day for it.’
The guardsmen grumbled, but when Andariel snapped out a string of orders, they obeyed. Rhodorix had judged it time to take his new troop of mounted soldiers off the terrace and into the real terrain beyond. They rode armed. Most of the guardsmen wore a bronze breastplate and carried a long slashing sword in a baldric, though Rhodorix had his own chain hauberk and pattern-welded sword. Five of the mounted men carried the new short bows and quivers of arrows. Andariel had deemed it wise to ride ready for trouble, since trouble lay all around them.
Under a thick grey sky the men walked their horses down the mountain, following a narrow dirt track through the system of terraces, where the farm folk were planting the winter wheat despite the chilly drizzle. Like the farm folk that Rhodorix had grown up with, they were thin, bent-backed, dressed in scruffy brown clothes with their feet wrapped in rags. Overhead birds wheeled, desperate to steal the seeds that the folk flung broadcast on the ground. Children with sticks chased them away.
Back in the homeland Rhodorix had paid little or no attention to farmfolk, but here everything struck him anew.
‘These farmers–’ Rhodorix waved his arm in their general direction ‘– they’re Hwilli’s folk?’
‘They are,’ Andariel said. ‘We bring this lot up here in the summer. Soon they’ll go back down the mountain with the cattle. The snow up here – it’s too hard on the stock. We send them to the Vale of Roses for the winter.’
Rhodorix had the distinct feeling that he was including the farmfolk with the cattle when he referred to ‘the stock’. He rose in the stirrups for a last survey of the farm folk, but none of the women looked attractive enough to give to Gerontos. They rode on, heading down the mountain. Below in a narrow valley a village of wattled huts stood around a well. More fields spread out to either side. A wider road ran the length of the valley, leading to the foothills at either end.
‘This isn’t the Vale of Roses, is it?’ Rhodorix said.
Andariel tossed his head back and laughed aloud. ‘No. In the spring we’ll ride back there, and you’ll see how splendid it is.’ His face suddenly darkened. ‘Well, with luck.’
‘And if the gods are willing. Are the farmers down there Hwilli’s folk, too?’
‘No, not at all. In the southlands around Rinbaladelan, the farmers and herders all come from the People themselves.’
‘Ah. I’d wondered.’ Which meant, he supposed, that he wouldn’t find another woman for his brother there, either.
‘It’s a hard life they have,’ Andariel continued. ‘The priests say that they did somewhat in their last lives to deserve it, just like we earned our place as warriors.’
‘Our priests always told me the same thing.’ Rhodorix touched the hilt of his sword to ward off any evil that might appear at the mention of such arcane matters. ‘Which way shall we go now?’
‘South,’ Andariel said. ‘The prince told me that some bands of Meradan are raiding to the south. They must have stayed down on the flat and just bypassed us.’
‘Have messengers come in? I haven’t seen any.’
‘The prince doesn’t need messengers. He has farseers.’
‘Has what?’
‘Mages who can see things from afar.’
Andariel was watching him with a slight smile, as if he expected the stranger to argue. While Rhodorix had never known men with true magic, he’d heard about them back in the homeland. What about Galerinos and that blue fire? he told himself. That must have been magic. ‘Well and good, then,’ Rhodorix said. ‘South it is!’
Although they saw no raiders that first day, after a few more days of riding patrols the mounted guardsmen had their first battle test. They had ridden a little farther than usual, once again to the south some ten miles from the fortress. When they crested a grassy hill, they saw below them some fifteen Meradan, riding along as easily and openly as if they owned the road.
‘Here’s a chance to try those new bows,’ Rhodorix said, ‘but tell the lads to try to spare the horses. We need every mount we can get.’
Andariel turned in the saddle and called back the orders. The archers looped their reins around the saddle peaks and brought