Earth Magic Read online

  Now, as he and Oliver walked past the great hall into the tangle of the courtyard to face Morca returned from Chastain, as the witch had said, Haldane tried questions in his mind.

  He craved answers, but he would not say too much, not to Oliver. He would not tell Oliver of the witch’s words—nothing of portents or Stone Heath, or a foreign bride, or his soul, his, Haldane’s, torn from his body by this Goddess, this Libera. But in this moment when he could ask, he must have at least one answer.

  They passed the high loaded wagon with heavy carved doors lashed one to a side like elaborate shields. Morca had been looking for a proper set of doors for two years.

  Haldane shot a look at the huddle of foreign men out of Chastain and then he asked, “Does magic cost a witch pain?”

  Chapter 3

  THE MEN OF CHASTAIN THEY PAUSED NEAR WERE A LEAN LOT, leaner than Haldane, although Haldane was lean for a Get. Their hair was of an unmanly length, and though they wore their weapons well displayed, it was all in show because they gave Haldane and Oliver ground. They burdened themselves in hauberks of chain mail, shoulder to knee, and they held their helmets by the noseguards like clumsy bludgeons or tucked under their arms like men waiting their turn to bowl at the jackstone. Haldane wondered if they would flee in a herd if he stamped his foot.

  Oliver looked at Haldane. These days he must even look up. No apparent matter to him that with the parting of the men of Chastain, they were in sight of Black Morca.

  “Magic always takes its price without exception,” Oliver said. “It is the one thing I know about magic. What commerce would you have with witches? Do you seek a new tutor?”

  “No!” said Haldane. “I saw the old witch Jael in the woods as I hunted today. She made a pheasant for my arrow with magic and then laughed. And she disappeared before me with the aid of a spell like your Pall of Darkness, but other. I wished to know if her tricks cost her pain.”

  “Ah, no doubt,” said Oliver. His beard was white and cropped to the outline of his face. His lip and cheeks were bare and ruddy. His hair was gray and wild. He ran his hand through his hair and left it wilder. “But I wonder their meaning. Did she speak?”

  “She laughed,” Haldane said.

  “It must have been to hide her pain,” said Oliver. It was his way of closing the question. He indicated Morca with a lift of his chin and a wag of his beard. “Your father waits.”

  Serfs began to light the courtyard torches against the darkness. Odo the Steward directed hands to the unloading of the high-piled wagon. Odo sent a serving woman across the muddy yard to show the knights of Chastain to their quarters. The gates of the dun were swung shut, a solid door for the wild night to rap at for entry.

  As Oliver and Haldane approached, Morca caught sight of them. He pushed past the painted man, raising an arm. Morca was a dark, overpowering giant. He had charm and a rude wit, but lacked grace. His subtleties were crude, and even his whispers were loud. His hand was heavy.

  His son was little like him, except perhaps in owning wit and lacking subtlety, but he would never be as obvious a presence, never as tall, never as strong, never as whelming. Haldane’s hair was a neutral brown. Morca’s was a black and curly bush. Morca’s hand could cover and hold Haldane’s two fists.

  Haldane readied to take his blow, but Morca swung his arm around his son’s shoulders and pulled him close, saying, “Hey, Lothor. Here is Haldane, my son and second. My little brown bull to match your little brown heifer. Bring your daughter out and we’ll introduce them. Introductions before weddings, hey?”

  Haldane was staggered by the blow that did not fall. His heart was felled by the words that followed. Morca was in his gay and unpredictable mood. He was manic in his half-played game. What now? The witch’s sight had been true—Morca’s return had brought change indeed. Was he then to be Libera’s brown bull, her wurox? Was he to be dumb-eyed sacrifice to a goddess he had asked nothing of? He felt himself a helpless hand-tossed die, spun for others’ pleasure. At that moment, for that moment, he wished to be simple. He wished to be nothing, almost nothing—a housecarl. Still a Get, but not a king.

  Lothor tugged his cloak into place as though Morca had set it awry with his violence. He held a brown-and-white dog, as neat and small as a puppy. His hair was white to his shoulders and he wore a fur cap ajaunt. He wore tight hose and he stood on heels strapped to pattens to keep him above the mud. He on his heels and Oliver in his bare feet in the mud were much of a height.

  He said, “In Chastain, only one of equal rank would presume to ask to be presented. Marriage is hardly sufficient excuse. But since you were willing to forego your long-tried Gettish customs in favor of ours in the matter of a dowry, I suppose we must be equally civil.”

  He was no older than Morca, but he seemed older. His days as a leader of fighting men, if ever they existed, must have been early and brief. His voice was boyish thin, his face was paled with powder and brightened with rouge, and he carried a dog—and who would follow a man like that?

  His traveling carriage was decorated in strong shades of yellow and red, and the drawn leather curtains that masked the interior were painted with gilt flowers. Lothor tapped at the door of the carriage with the head of his scepter, his thin stick of power.

  “Marthe,” he said, “You must come out now.”

  He spoke of matters beyond Haldane’s knowledge. His tongue was a twisted Nestorian that had more in common with the difficult language of Leonidus, the Poet King, five hundred years dead, than with the country speech, plain and simple, of the boy’s nurses or with the Western speech Oliver had brought with him out of Palsance. Still, Haldane understood him. His tone was clear if his words were not.

  Lothor must surely be a king. Morca did not bother to understand him, as he would have understood any lesser man. The dog watched all, silent but eager.

  The door of the carriage opened and a girl, a woman, a princess, Lothor’s little brown heifer, stepped down into the mud of the yard with some difficulty. It was impossible to tell if her clumsiness was the result of shoes raised and protected like her father’s. Her great dress of white and gold hid her feet. The heavy sleeves of the dress were a series of puffs and every puff wore a modest skirt of its own. Her face, underneath her broad-brimmed hat, was unappealing, sour and painted.

  “Odo!” Morca bawled, calling like a herdsman, as she stepped to the ground.

  She flinched at the roar of it and seemed to teeter, and was steadied by her father’s hand.

  Odo the Steward, the Nestorian of highest rank in Morca’s service, who might even order housecarls to come, go, or stay, ceased his directions and overseeing as he heard his master call. His exhortations and movements of hand were no more needed than sideline signals to a squad of well-drilled horses on parade. The work continued smoothly without him as he came off the porch of Morca’s hall and out into the yard

  “Yes, Lord Morca?”

  “Unload the carriage,” Morca called. “It is empty now.” He turned back to Lothor. “Ha. I said if breakfast was early and cold, we should make our dinner here in the comfort of home.”

  Odo began to draft serfs from the earnest ant line waiting to carry away what it was handed from the wagon of spoils to Morca’s storehouse within. Or was the wagon the dowry Lothor had spoken of? Trust Morca. For years, until men had drifted back to calling him Black Morca, he had been known as Morca Bride-Stealer, the man who paid no bride price. In these days, unlike the better ones of old, the name was no sully. Men had laughed and leapt to follow him.

  The serfs hurried to the carriage. One bounded up atop and began to unstrap royal baggage.

  Haldane studied the girl. His bride? Her hair under the hat was some shade of brown and pinned in draping curls. In this light, that was all that could be said. Her nose was long and straight and her face was round. He thought she must be older than he, all of twenty or more. And stunted, shorter than her father. Shorter than the Nestorian women he knew best, the nurses, serving maids, an
d cooks of the dun, or those he saw in the villages. Shorter than Get women, though he knew none of these, never having traveled, except once to his grandfather’s when he was a child, and it being Morca’s rule that men might marry but that married men might not serve within his walls. But the Get women of his mind and the Get women of his memory were taller than this.

  The boy thought though he might marry this princess of Chastain, he wouldn’t like her. He would close her away in a tight room and turn his back on the door. She deserved no better, and she would get from him only what she deserved. Men might see him with her and laugh.

  Morca said, “This is Lothor of Chastain. The king. And this is his daugh—”

  “No, no,” said Lothor, changing the lapdog to his other arm. “Let me make the introductions. This gaping lurdane, my dear, is your husband-to-be. Haldane, the son of Black Morca. My youngest daughter, the Princess Marthe, the spring of my old age. You are not fit to lay eyes upon her, but I grace you with her hand. I do not know this barefoot man.”

  “Embrace her, boy,” said Morca. “This is Oliver, my maker of magic. Oliver from the Hook of Palsance. Did you know I had a wizard? Would you care to try his skill?”

  Lothor said, “It is a large place to be from. And the name is unknown to me. Call him wizard if you like. We have no barefoot wizards in the Western Kingdoms.”

  “Embrace her, boy,” said Morca in Nestorian.

  “But she’s painted,” Haldane said. He spoke in Gettish.

  “Embrace her. You can wipe it off after.”

  Oliver stood silent. He did not speak to Lothor, but stood toes a-squelch in the mud and looked steadily at him, as though his sheer presence spoke against all doubts. Men here knew him if Lothor did not.

  At his father’s continued urging, Haldane finally stepped forward and put his arms around the stranger princess. The material of her dress was thick rich brocade, stiff and heavy under his hands. She must have been a-teeter on pattens because he threw her off balance and only saved her from falling by seizing her shoulders. She pressed at him to be free and, balancing, struck at him, knocking his bow off his shoulder so that it hung at his elbow by the string.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said. “You have grimed and soiled my dress. Do you understand Nestorian?”

  “My little bull,” said Morca.

  “I’ll teach her to speak Gettish,” said Haldane, speaking Gettish.

  “Let us go in,” said Morca. “At dinner, I’ll have Oliver prove his magic for you. An Ultimate Spell, if you are willing to try your courage. Stone Heath in reverse.”

  “If you have so many wizards to spare,” said Lothor.

  “Wizards are of nature economical,” said Oliver. “We suit the size of our spells to the occasion. We do not waste ourselves idly. But tonight I will show you magic.”

  “Odo!” Morca called. “Show King Lothor and Princess Marthe to their apartments. We meet at dinner, Lothor. Bring your fork.”

  “And you bring yours,” said Lothor.

  “I will. I will.” And Morca held his new fork high, finer than Rolf the carl’s, and he waved it. As he saw Lothor and Marthe led away, he said, “Come, you two. Follow me to my rooms. We will talk before dinner.”

  Chapter 4

  MORCA LED THE WAY TO THE HALL followed by Oliver at one heel and Haldane at the other. Within his dun, Black Morca was first. That is what it means to rule. Morca was never late. Other men clocked themselves by him and nothing began until he gave signal. Whatever he commanded was done. Whatever he chose to want was his. He was served first and ate sweetest. When he walked, he was followed. Where he walked, way was made.

  A careless serf, too intent on the heavy brass-bound chest he helped to bear to realize his mistake, stepped backward onto the portico and into Morca’s path. Morca informed him of his error with a casual backhand blow that separated him from the chest and sent him tripping over his feet and into the wall. The chest became too much for the other man and he was jerked forward. He dropped the chest and it landed on his toes, sending him into a painful dance.

  All laughed at the joke but Morca who was content to grin hugely. Once when he was drunk, Morca had won a bet by breaking a door with a slack serf, a dropper of food and spiller of ale, lifting the Nestorian in his two hands and carrying him forward like a lance as he yelled his slogan, “Alf Morca Gettha!” The serf was broken as well as the door. Men still marveled at the thickness of wood that was smashed and the proofs of Morca’s strength.

  Morca said to the serf he had struck, “You’ll never rise to serve within the hall if you continue clumsy.”

  “Your pardon, master,” said the serf, first in Nestorian and then again in rude Gettish. “Please.”

  Odo the Steward rushed past them and began to strike the man. “Is this the way you see your lord home? There will be no meat for you tonight.”

  Odo looked to Morca for approval. He was still beating the shrinking serf when Morca, Oliver, and Haldane passed inside the hall.

  After the cool evening air, the main room of the hall was warm. There were fires in both fireplaces and the air was moist and heavy with the odors of dinner seeping through from the kitchens behind the dais. Arrases, some of Gettish fashioning, some taken from the West, hung before all the walls and kept the warmth and homey smells well contained within the room.

  The great dinner boards were being unstacked and laid across their trestles to make tables for the company. Barons joined with carls to make light of the work. It was honest work for a man to do. With Morca gone, three tables had been sufficient to serve the dun, and with so few to sleep in the hall, the tables had never been struck.

  The three tables had already been increased to five and more were being laid. The benches were being carried into place. There was but one chair within the room and it was Morca’s. It stood behind the main table in the center of the dais, solid, great and heavy, as tall as Morca and wide enough to seat two ordinary men. Morca’s father, Garmund, had seen it one year in the West, known it as better than his own, and returned for it the next summer with a wagon and the strength to take it away.

  “Hey, by damn, when do we eat?” asked Morca, his voice filling the room.

  “Within the hour, Lord Morca.”

  “Ale for all. Let’s have the dirt well washed from our throats. A good raid deserves a good end.”

  “What about our guests?” called a baron, raising laughter.

  “Send them all the water they will drink,” said Morca. “I’ll have my ale upstairs.”

  He took the stairs by the wall to his rooms above, followed by Oliver and Haldane. No Get was allowed above except at Morca’s bidding, and no one at all was allowed to walk the upper porch above the portico but Morca. His wife had had permission while yet she lived, but since her fall and death, no one.

  At the head of the stairs, sitting on a three-legged stool, was an old man, the oldest man within the dun. His name was Svein. He was one of the few who had been a man at Stone Heath and lived, one of the very few who yet lived these many years later. As his proof of the battle he carried a red lightning scar on his right cheek. For as long as the boy could remember, his hair had been white, but in other days he had been known as Svein Half-White Half-Right. He had served as Lore Master for Garmund, remembering the old ways, the songs, the stories, the sayings, the wisdom the Gets had brought west to Nestor, and applying them to these new times and new ways. Now he sat his stool before Morca’s door, guarding the stair in Morca’s absence and remembering for himself all the things that younger men did not care to know. He rose when he saw Morca.

  “Woe,” he said. “Woe to you, Morca. You overreach yourself. You wish to be king in more than war. You would turn Nestor into the fourth Kingdom of the West. Your father was a good king, a right and proper king. He held to the old ways and bowed to the will of his peers.”

  It was the sort of thing he was wont to say. As the last of those at Stone Heath, he was allowed by Morca to say what he w
ould, however rude, however contrary. Morca had that much respect for the old ways.

  “Have you been downstairs again?” Morca asked.

  “No, I have not,” the old man said and plunked back onto his stool. “I have no need. I’ve been sitting my stool and minding my business as I should, but I can hear of your alliance to Chastain well enough from here. What your father would have thought!”

  Svein pointed an accusing finger at Oliver. “It is his fault. You were a good boy until he came and now he has filled your head with gross ambitions. Garulf overrode the word of his barons and bought the Gets Stone Heath. What will your appetites buy?”

  Morca said, “Be at peace, old man. You excite yourself. Sit your stool and watch my door well. When my ale comes, pass it through. There is ale for you, too, if your watch is good and your tongue ceases its flap.”

  “There is?” Svein rose and went trotting halfway down the stair. “Ale,” he called. “Ale for me. Morca said I might have ale.”

  A fire had been laid and started on Morca’s arrival. Nestorian serfs might pass within the room under Svein’s watchful eye to do their work and leave again. The rules did not apply to them since they were not people. The stair was the distance between Morca and lesser Gets, but the distance between any Get and the Nestorians who served them was so great and obvious that it needed no emphasis.

  Haldane sat him down by the fire on a three-legged stool the match of Svein’s. Oliver closed the heavy door on the din from belowstairs.

  Morca said, “Woe, woe, woe. It is all he can say. He eats and shits and sits his stool now in Nestor, but his mind dwells in Shagetai that we left fifty years before he was born. If it weren’t for the respect I bear my father, I would cut his throat. That is a sense of tradition for you. I’m an old-fashioned man and he gives me no credit for it.”