Godgar cleared his throat. “You, young man, where do you ride—or walk, since, though you wear horseman’s boots, you come hither on your own two feet?”
And the compulsion which had brought me over the mountains set on me now an order for truth though I did not wish to speak in this place where peace was a birth of hope.
“I hunt men—”
“Men—not a man?” Hervon’s eyebrows lifted. I thought he had credited me with some motive from his own past, the desire for private vengeance. For a feud vow, taken in the right time and place—or the wrong, depending upon how you looked on the matter—could also be a geas.
“Men—those willing to carve out a new future—” How could I put my mission into words without revealing too much to those inclined to betray me?
Godgar frowned. “You are no Sulcar recruiter for a raiding voyage. To venture this far inland when you could have men beyond counting along the river or in any port would be folly. And if it is foray against Alizon—the Seneschal has forbidden such, save under his own banner.”
“No. I have fighting to offer, but not at sea nor in the north. I offer land—good land—to be sword bought. Where a son may uncover his father’s fire to a higher blazing—”
The Lady Chriswitha had been watching me closely. Now she leaned forward a little, holding me with her gaze as if she were one of the Witches, able to pick true from false in my very brain.
“And where lies this land of yours, stranger?”
I wet my lips with tongue tip. This was the time of testing. “To the east,” I said.
They were all blank of countenance. Did the block hold so tight that no thought of Escore could ever penetrate, that I could not arouse any of them even to think of such a journey?
“East?” She repeated that with complete incomprehension, as if I had used a word entirely without meaning. “East?” she said again, and this time it was a sharp-asked question.
This was a gamble, but all my life had been a wagering of one risk against another. I must learn here and now what luck I would have with any men such as these. Tell them the truth as we had discovered it, see if that truth would free them from the bonds tied long ago.
So I spoke of what Kemoc had discovered at Lormt, and of what we had found over the mountains sealed in that long ago. Yet in that telling I did not reveal my own identity, and it was that fact the Lady Chriswitha struck upon unerringly when I had done.
“If all this be so—then how is it that you went over these mountains you say we cannot remember, or are not allowed to remember, and which have been so long closed to us? Why did not such bonds hold you also?” Her suspicion was plain.
But her lord, as if he had not heard her, spoke now:
“This much is true, I have never thought of the east. In Karsten, yes, but here—no. It was as if that direction did not exist.”
“The Lady has asked a question which needs an answer,” growled Godgar from the other side. “I would like to hear it, too.”
There could be no more disguise. To prove my truth I must tell all—the reason for my going eastward. And I put it directly.
“For two reasons did I go. I am outlawed, or believe that I am, and I am not fully of your blood.”
“I knew it!” Godgar’s fist raised menacingly, though he did not strike with it. “Outlawed, yet he tricked you into guesting him, Lord. And with such a guest bond does not hold. Cut him down, else he bring us new troubles!”
“Hold!” Hervon cut through that hot speech. “What name do you bear, outlaw? And talk of geas will not cover you now.”
“I am Kyllan of the House of Tregarth.”
For a second or two I thought that they did not know, that that name meant nothing here. Then Godgar roared in wrath and this time his fist sent me sprawling, my head ringing. I had no chance in my defense, for his men were in the hall and they piled on me before I could even gain my knees. Another blow sent me into darkness and I awoke, with an aching head and bruised body, to yet more darkness.
From very faint traces of light outlining a door—or at least an entrance—well above me and the feel of pounded, hardened earth under my body, my hands being locked in rope loops, I concluded that I now lay in a storage place which must antedate, maybe by several years, this half-completed manor. I had helped to construct just such supply pits in the past, deep dug in the earth, floored and walled with stone if possible, if not with hardened clay, to be covered by a trap door.
Why did I still live? By rights they could have taken my life there in the hall. Apparently Godgar, at least, knew me for what I had been undoubtedly proclaimed. That they had not killed me at once probably meant they planned to deliver me to the authorities of the Council, and perhaps the first ending was the one I should desire the most.
As a recruiter I was a failure indeed. One can always see one’s mistakes afterwards, as plain as the victors’ shields hung on the outwalls of a conquered keep. But I had never claimed to be clever at such work. How long would I lie here? I believed this holding to be one far to the southeast, perhaps the only one now in this section of the country. Any messenger to the authorities might have more than a day’s travel, even if he took extra mounts for relays. Unless, of course, there was an adept trained in sending somewhere in the neighborhood.
I squirmed around, though the movement added to the pain in my head, and I had to fight nausea. Whoever had tied that confining rope knew his business well. I stopped my fruitless struggling, since no energy of mine was going to free me. To free me—had I the slightest hope left?
But if I was going to be given up to the Council, there was something I must do, if I could, for others. Would the Witches ever dare to turn east?
They might. Who can foretell any action when he has not even the dimmest of foresight? Those on the other side of the mountain must be warned.
Matter would not aid me—but mind? I concentrated, building my mental picture of Kaththea, straining to contact my sister wherever she might be. Faint—very faint—a stirring. But no more than that shadow of a shadow. Kemoc? Having tried the greater first, now I strove for the lesser. And this time received not even a shadow reply.
So much for our talent. Dahaun had been wrong when she had suggested I might communicate so in extremity. Dahaun? I set her in my mind as I had seen her last.
Shadow—deeper than shadow—not real contact as I had with brother and sister so that words and messages might pass from mind to mind, but enough to give warning. Instantly there was a beating at me in return—only it was as if someone shouted to me in a foreign tongue some frantic message which I could not understand. I lay gasping under the pressure of that unintelligible sending. It snapped, and was gone.
My breath came in fast, shallow gasps; my heart pounded as if I raced before some enemy host. There was a sound, but it was of this world and not from that place outside. The crack of light about the opening above grew larger and a ladder thudded down. They were coming for me. I braced myself for action which I must face.
A whisper of robes. I tried to hold my head higher. Why had the Lady Chriswitha come alone? The door fell behind her so that the gloom was again complete as she came to stand over me. I caught the scent of that sweet fern women use to lay between fresh washed garments.
She was stooping very close above me. “Tell me why you fled Estcarp.”
There was urgency in her demand, but the way of it I did not understand. What made the reason of our escape of any importance now?
I told her the whole of it, making a terse statement of facts and fears as we three had known them. She listened without interruption, then:
“The rest of it. The lost land—the chance to bring it once more under our rule—?”
“Under the rule of good instead of evil, through a war,” I corrected. Again I was puzzled, and asked:
“What matters all this to you, lady?”