“Tell me – “ I began.
“No!” he half-turned from me. “So much may I say, but no more. I cannot farsee your choices, and no word of mine must influence you in their making. Go with the Peace.” Then he raised his hand, and, between us in the air, he traced a sign. I half-started back, for his moving finger left a faint glimmering which was gone almost as quickly as I marked it. And I realized then that in some of his seeking Riwal must have been successful, for his sign was of the Power.
“Until we meet again then, comrade.” I spoke friend-farewell.
He did not face me squarely, but stood, his hand still a little raised to me. I know now that he understood this was our last meeting and perhaps regretted it. But I was not cursed with that sight which can hurt far more than it shields. What man wishes to see into the future in truth when there are so many ills lying there in wait for us?
As we traveled to Ulmskeep, Jago talked steadily, and that this was of purpose, I shortly understood. He so made known to me the members of my father’s household, giving each his character as he himself saw it, with unspoken shadings which allowed me to perceive that this one might be well-disposed, that one not. I think he saw me as a child fated to make some error that would bring about disaster and was doing what he could to give me some manner of protection against any outspoken folly.’
My elder half-brother, who had come to Ulmskeep as a very young child, had, when he reached the age suitable for instruction in arms, been sent to our mother’s kin. But within the past year he had returned, riding comrade-in-arms to our kinsman Rogear who was my sister’s betrothed. I could well guess that he was to me an unfriend and with him I must be wary.
My mother had her followers among others at the keep, and Jago, with what delicacy he could summon, named those to me, giving short descriptions of each and of the positions they held. On the other hand my father’s forces were in the greater number, and among those were the major officers – the Master of Armsmen, the marshal, and others.
It was a divided household, and such are full of pitfalls. Yet on the surface all seemed smooth. I listened carefully, asking some questions. Perhaps these explanations were Jago’s idea; perhaps my father had suggested that I be so cautioned before I came to face friend and unfriend, that I might tell one from the other.
We rode into the keep at sunset, Jago having blown a signal with his approach horn so that we found the door guard drawn up to do us honor. I had marked the residence banners of Uppsdale and Flathingdale below our gryphon on the tower, and knew that two of those my father had summoned were already here. Thus, from the beginning, I would be under the eyes of the curious as well as those of the covertly hostile.
I must play my role well, seemingly unaware of any crosscurrent; bear myself modestly as became a candidate for arms, yet be far from a fool. Was I able to do this? I did not know.
The guards clanged swords together as we dismounted. My father, wearing a loose robe of ceremony over his jerkin and breeches, came forth from the deep shadow of the main portal to the hall. I fell to one knee, holding out my sword by the point that he could lay fingers lightly on its hilt in acknowledgment.
Then he drew me to my feet in a half-embrace, and, with his hand still on my arm, brought me out of the open into the main hall where a feasting board had already been set up, and serving men and maids were busied spreading it across with strips of fair linen and setting out the plates and drinking horns.
There were two other men of early middle age, robes of ceremony about their shoulders. My father made me known to Lord Savron of Uppsdale and Wintof of Flathingdale. That they regarded me keenly I was well aware. But I was strengthened in my role by the knowledge that I made, in my mail and leather over-jerkin, no different appearance than their own sons might display. At this moment no man might raise the cry of monster. They accepted my proper deference as if this were an ordinary meeting and I had been absent from Ulmskeep for perhaps only an hour or two, not for all my life.
Since I was still considered but a boy and, by custom, of little importance, I was able speedily to withdraw from the company of my elders and go to that section of the barracks where the unmarried men of the household were quartered. In deference to my heirship, I was given a small room to myself – a very bare room in which there was a bed, narrow and hard, two stools, and a small table, far less comfortable than my room in the foresters’ holding.
A serving lad brought in my saddle bags. I noted that he watched me with open curiosity when he thought I did not mark him, lingering to suggest that be bring me hot water for washing. When I agreed, I thought that he was determined to make the most of his chance to view the “monster” at close quarters and perhaps report his discoveries to his fellows.
I had laid aside my jerkin and mail by the time he returned, standing in my padded undercoat, sorting through my clothing for my best tabard with its gryphon symbol. He sidled in with a ewer from which steam arose, watching me as he placed it and a basin on the table, and twitched off a towel he had borne over one shoulder to lay beside it.
“If you need service, Lord Kerovan – “
I smoothed out the tabard. Now I deliberately unhooked my undercoat, letting it slide from my body, which was thus bared to the waist. Let him see I was not misshapen. As Jago said, if I clung to my boots, no man could miscall me.
“You may look me out a shirt – “ I gestured toward my bags and then saw he was staring at me. What had he expected? Some horribly twisted body? I glanced down and saw what had become so much a part of me I had forgotten I still wore it – . Lifting its chain over my head, I laid it on the table as I washed and saw him eyeing it. Well enough, let him believe that I wore a talisman. Men did so. And one in the form of the symbol of my House was proper.
He found the shut and held it for me as I redonned the gryphon. And he hooked my tabard, handed me my belt with its knife-of-pride before he left, doubtless with much to tell his fellows. But when he had gone, I drew the gryphon from hiding and held it in my hand.
As usual when I held it so, it had a gentle warmth. With that warmth came a sensation of peace and comfort, as if this thing, fashioned long before my first ancestor had ridden into the south dales, had waited all these centuries just to lie in my hand.
So far all had gone as it should. But before me still lay that ordeal from which my thoughts had shied since first I had known that I must come to Ulmsdale, the meeting with my mother. What could I say to her, or she to me? There lay between us that which no one could hope to bridge – not after all these years.
I stood there, cupping close the crystal ball and thinking of what I might do or say at a moment which could be put off no longer. Suddenly it was as if someone spoke aloud – yet it was only in my mind. I might have looked through a newly unshuttered window so that a landscape hitherto-hidden lay before me.
The scene was shadowed, and I knew it was not mine to ever walk that way, just as there could be no true meeting between us which would leave us more than strangers. Yet I felt no sense of loss, only as if a burden had been lifted from me, to leave me free. We had no ties; therefore I owed her no more than she willed me to. I would meet her as I would any lady of rank, paying her the deference of courtesy, asking nothing in return. In my hand the globe was warm and glowing. But a sound at the door made me slip that into hiding before I turned to face who stood there.