Claudia J Edwards - [Forest King 02] Read online

  “Do you think that might be a problem, Adelinda’s being a woman?” Felim asked.

  “It could be. Not all peoples let their women do as they like the way you horse folk do.”

  “Do as they like! After all the pressure that’s been put on me to marry! I wouldn’t like to see your idea of a repressive society!”

  “Nobody made you many,” Orvet pointed out mildly. “Nor sold you to your prospective husband, will-you-nill-you. You were let to go to school, and to take up a business venture of your own, and if you’re successful at it you’ll be just as respected as your brother, and just as laughed at if you fail. There are many places where such freedom for a woman would be unthinkable.”

  “Ah, sis, we weren’t trying to force you into anything you didn’t want to do. You’ve got to admit, you used to give the impression of a girl whose main interest in life was men. We all just thought you ought to have one of your own.”

  “All right, all right. What are we going to do about this fellow’s offer?”

  Felim said, “I’m beginning to think Qrvet’s right. It would be foolish to go off with him who-knows-where. ”

  “I didn’t' say that. I think it might be quite interesting to go with him. There’s a feeling about him—or something. If you want to go, I’m ready to go with you. But I don’t think we should go unprepared. We should take someone who understands war.”

  “War?” Adelinda and Feiiin chorused.

  “Yes, war. I know that you can ride with any man in the Midsummer Games, light-horsed or heavy. But just because yon can handle games weapons doesn’t mean you’re mentally ready to kill, even to avoid being killed. We need a real soldier—just in case. And we’Sl need to take trained war-horses for ourselves and teach the farmer folk we take to use weapons and to ride a warhorse.”

  “Farmer folk?” objected Felim. “Everybody knows they haven’t the courage to fight...” He trailed off as he saw the look exchanged between Orvet and his sister.

  “I know who understands war,” said Adelinda. “Karel.” “Perfect,” said Orvet. “If he’ll come.”

  “We can ask. He certainly doesn’t seem too happy here.” Many of the horse folk were recruited into government ser-

  vice, since they had had for many years the reputation of being honest and dependable. Most joined the civil service, but one occasionally chose the King’s Army. Karel was such a one. He had returned, scarred, limping, and bitter, to live on his pension, two years ago. But he was restless and unhappy. He was a few years older than Adelinda, and had left when she was still a gawky child, but they had been good friends before he went and after his return she had been one of the few of his old associates he had been comfortable with. Adelinda could not think of anyone she would rather have at her side in a sticky spot, crippled or not.

  “Then you’ll try it?” Felim asked.

  “Yes. Will you keep my breeding stock for me until I get back?”

  “Sure. I’ll have plenty of room, selling fifty horses at one shot.”

  Orvet summoned the farmer folk Adelinda had chosen. They accepted the offered jobs with alacrity; work was not so easily come by, and the wage, with Li-Mun’s offered addition, was princely compared to what they could expect if they stayed. There were two young men: handsome, sullen Len and fair-haired, lazy Tobin, who gave promise of being the jokester of the crew. The third member was Ina, a plain, sensible girl who had hoped to become Adelinda’s personal maid. All three could ride and handle horses, Len having been employed as a plowman, Tobin as a groom, and Ina as a driver for the children of another family.

  The next morning, Felim and Orvet devoted themselves to picking the horses to be sold, including several of Adelinda’s, and getting the young geldings at least minimally broken to harness, saddle, and pack. Adelinda began the training of the farmer folk to the use and management of weapons and warhorses. Even Ina, somewhat to her indignation, was given lance and bow and mounted on one of the lightning-quick mountain horses.

  “Why do we have to ride these horses?” asked Tobin, picking himself up out of the dust of the big schooling arena and rubbing his posterior. The mare snorted. “Look at that, the beast is laughing at me.”

  “You signaled her to turn that sharply. I told you to go

  easy with kicking her in the sides. She’s just wondering why you jumped off like that,” Adelinda said, patiently. “You’ll get a chance to learn to ride a greathorse. But they’re not nearly as comfortable to ride nor as easy to maneuver as the mountain horses. When someone’s coming at you with a big nasty sword intending to do you bodily harm., you’ll be glad your horse can jump out of the way.”

  “If I don’t fall off at the fellow’s feet.” Tobin gathered up the reins and struggled back into the saddle.

  They had had a difficult time finding enough trained war-horses to mount the whole crew. Adelinda insisted upon taking Red Hawk.

  “Oh, sis, you know nobody rides a stallion to war. They’re too noisy, always yelling at other horses,” expostulated Felim. “I’ll let you take my old Games horse Dusty if you like.”

  “Even taking Red Hawk, we’re having a hard time mounting everybody on a trained warhorse. There’s the chestnut gelding, and your old gray, thank you. I don’t know if we ought to take him; he is fifteen years old, after all. Then if we take three of the mares, even though they’re in foal, that’s just barely enough. I know Red Hawk and trust him. I’ve been riding him all summer and he’s bold enough to try anything.”

  “Taking a mixed bunch of mares and geldings is bad enough, but a stallion? They’ll be fighting all the time.”

  “Maybe not. Red Hawk and Blackie didn’t fight. They threatened and cursed at each other, but they kept their herds apart and minded their own business.”

  “Maybe so, although I suspect that Red Hawk had better sense than to tackle Blackie—he’s twice as big. Maybe we’d better make Blackie one of the greathorse stallions we send.”

  That afternoon, Adelinda saddled Red Hawk and rode down to the village to talk to Karel, leaving Felim to teach the farmer folk and Orvet how to use a lance—his favorite events at the Midsummer Games were the ring-spearing and other contests that depended upon accuracy with the lance.

  Karel was where he was usually to be found, sitting on a bench in the shade of a cottonwood tree near his cottage,

  lame leg stretched out before him. He was staring somberly into space when Adelinda rode up and double-tied Red Hawk.

  Karel brightened a little when he saw Adelinda. “Hello, Nubbin!” he called, almost smiling. The scars on his face pulled grotesquely when he smiled broadly, so he tended to avoid it. “I thought you were going up to the mountains for the summer.”

  “I was, but something came up. How’s the leg?”

  “Better.” The leg was not better, and it wasn’t ever going to be better, but that was Karel’s stock answer when anyone asked about it; he loathed whiners. “How about a glass of beer? I’ve got a keg draped in wet towels, so it ought to be cool.”

  “Sounds great.” Adelinda watched while he struggled to his feet with the aid of his cane, and went to get the beer; Karel resented being waited on.

  Adelinda drained her glass and set it aside. “Buster, 1 didn’t come just to visit. I came because I need help.”

  Karel looked up at her with his crooked grin. “I thought there might be something wrong.”

  Adelinda told him about Li-Mun and his offer. “I’m going to go, Buster, but I don’t want to go alone. I need someone who knows about war and fighting. I don’t know what I’m getting into on the other continent and I might need someone I can trust on my side. Will you come?”

  “Surely you aren’t going alone.”

  “Well, Orvet and some of the farmer folk are coming, but they... they aren’t horse folk. I don’t know how far I can trust them.”

  “Orvet seems pretty reliable.”

  “Yes, but he’s a flatlander, and he doesn’t even know as much as I do about f
ighting. I really need you, Buster.”

  Karel gestured helplessly at his leg. “I’m not much of a fighter anymore, Nubbin.”

  “But you know about fighting. Most of the traveling will be on a ship, and I’ve got Felim’s old gray gelding Dusty for you to ride. He’s the easiest-gaited horse I’ve ever ridden. I know it would be hard for you, and you deserve your retirement, and if you don’t think you can do it, I’ll understand. But I’m asking you to come.”

  Karel sighed. Adelinda waited quietly; there was no point rushing Karel. It only made him stubborn. “Well, I’ve got to admit that retirement has been pretty boring. All right, I’ll go. Hey!”

  Adelinda had flung herself at him and given him a rough hug, at once delighting him and rather shocking him. All the horse folk tended to be a little reserved, and Karel more than most, especially since his return. He ruffled her thatch of hair as he used to do when he was a twelve-year-old daredevil and she a nuisancy tagalong tomboy. “Well, all right, then. When do we leave?”

  “We’re still breaking horses and teaching the farmer folk to handle a warhorse. You’ll want to help with teaching them about weapons. Li-Mun is in a terrific hurry. Say, two weeks?”

  “All right. I’ll need the time to get back in some kind of shape for riding, too. I haven’t been on a horse since I got back. You say you convinced Felim to lend me Dusty?” “Yes, if you want him. Unless you think he’s too old?” “What is he, fifteen? That’s not so old. You’ve fallen into the flatlanders’ way of thinking. They break their warm-bloods at two and bum them out by the time they’re ten. I’ve known purebreds of either breed to be as useful and active when they were twenty-five as they ever were.”

  “You’re right, I’ve seen it too. I’ll bring him over in the morning and you can ride back with me and get us all started on real weapons. So far we’ve just used Games lances.”

  “All right, Nubbin, I’ll see you in the morning.” He hobbled with her to where Red Hawk was tied and held his head for her while she mounted—not that it was necessary; the stallion stood like a statue. “And, Nubbin, thanks for thinking of me.”

  “Who else would I think of? Thanks for accepting!” She wheeled the stallion and rode down the street, riding, Karel noticed as he watched her out of sight, with an unconscious grace that he knew he could never again match.

  Chapter 3

  An-Shai stood looking sadly down at the mangled, halfeaten body of the frail old woman.

  “You see, Your Grace,” babbled the peasant, nearly incoherent with fear and grief, “it’s night stalkers, all right, Your Grace, poor old Granny, she liked to take a walk in the evenings. She never thought of coming to harm!”

  “Hush, you fool, you’re disturbing His Grace. He can see that it was night stalkers that killed your old granny,” the village priest hissed. Abashed, the peasant subsided. At a little distance, the rest of the family grieved noisily.

  An-Shai turned to the priest and the family. “You’re not to tell anyone about this, any of you. I’ll see to the night stalkers.” He turned on his heel and marched briskly to his chariot.

  He should be pleased, he told himself grimly. His plan to reduce the population of the old and the very young was succeeding admirably. This was the third death in as many days, and so far he had managed to keep the news of it from getting out. The other old folks would be less cautious if they didn’t know about it. He really should be celebrating. Instead he felt angry, and sick, and sorry for the victim. Poor old woman, she liked to take a walk in the evening, and her bishop wanted to be an initiate, and for these two crimes she had died horribly. Her family, too, seemed to be genuinely sorry for her death; in spite of being old and useless, she was evidently loved.

  The chariot lurched into motion and An-Shai managed, with difficulty, not to disgrace himself by vomiting all over his driver. A great rage was welling up in him. He longed to take all the men at his disposal and clean out the night stalker nest. He knew where it was, oh yes, indeed he did. It was, if not by his permission, at least without his interference, that they came raiding by night into the Vale.

  He managed to contain himself in white-faced and stony dignity until he got back to the palace and into his private library, where he slammed the door so forcefully behind himself that none of his staff would have dared to disturb him to announce the end of the world.

  “When I become an initiate,” he said through clenched teeth to the silence of the books, “I shall have every night stalker in Godsland hunted down and destroyed. And Li-Mun, if he isn’t back by fall.”

  Adelinda leaned on the salt-gritty rail of the ship, breathing great gulps of the damp sea air. The little vessel heaved itself groaning up the back of a long ocean roller, poised shuddering on the crest, and swooped down the wave’s face as if intending to drive itself right into the bottom of the sea. Adelinda swallowed and fixed her gaze on the horizon.

  She had been uncomfortable since they had sailed past King’s City and into the open ocean. These foreign ships with their strange high poops and what seemed to Adelinda’s eyes to be dangerously high masts and heavy top-hamper were fast. They had passed several of the King’s crack packets coming downriver. But they bobbed in the water like corks and straggled with wind and wave instead of yielding smoothly to them. Tobin, who shared the flagship of the small fleet with her, was below in his bunk, completely incapacitated. He alternated between semiconsciousness and heaving fit to bring up his socks.

  “Are you ready for another lesson?” Li-Mun asked from behind her. Adelinda had asked him to give her lessons in the language of Godsland. Owing to the fact that she was surrounded by the language, and Tobin was in no condition to bear her company, she was making excellent progress. One of Li-Mun’s soldiers on the second ship, the one with blue sails that Orvet and Ina were on, and another on the last one with the rosy sails, where Karel and Len were, had been

  delegated to teach the language. But whether anyone was in a condition to take advantage of the instruction, Adelinda didn’t know, nor whether the horses on the other ships were being properly cared for.

  “I think we should begin on the written language today,” Adelinda said.

  Li-Mun was nonplussed. “You will not learn the written language!” he protested.

  “Why not?”

  “Women don’t learn to read and write. It’s forbidden by God the Father,” Li-Mun said indignantly.

  “Li-Mun, I want to learn. The prohibitions of your Father-God don’t impress me. 1 can read and write perfectly well in my own language, and if I’m going to teach your people how to care for, breed, and train horses all within a year, there are lots of things I’m going to have to write down. Unless, of course, you intend to follow me around and write for me, or assign one of your secretaries to do it.”

  The thought of assigning a priest to follow a woman about and transcribe her words was even more appalling. “I don’t think...”

  “Probably not. Here, these are the symbols I’ve figured out already,” Adelinda said, holding out a piece of the thin, crisp white paper her people used, much superior to the heavy bark paper in use in Godsland.

  Li-Mun took the paper and gaped at a list of the fifty or so most common syllabic symbols in use. “How did you get these?”

  “It’s very obliging of you to label everything. Once I knew the words for them, it was clear that each symbol stands for a syllable. Very awkward; there must be a million different symbols to memorize.”

  “Only about three hundred,” Li-Mun said incautiously.

  “I wasn’t sure of this one. Is this ‘ba’ or ‘bi’?”

  “That’s ‘ba.’ And this one here is ‘ke,’ not ‘ge.’” Before he quite knew what was happening, Li-Mun was showing her the basic syllables and helping her to write the complex shapes that represented them.

  It wasn’t until later that night that Li-Mun woke up in a perfect sweat, realizing that he was breaking two of the most fundamental taboos of his religion—that no
lay person could ever be taught to read and write and that no woman should ever be taught anything. It was fortunate, he mused, that An-Shai was so much superior to him in controlling the laity. He would have to worry about domesticating Adelinda.

  Adelinda, for her part, found Li-Mun something of an enigma, too. The Black Mountains horse folk had always prided themselves on their freedom from superstition, and their schools were organized around strictly rational lines. The poor farmer folk, on the other hand, were afflicted with a wide variety of superstitions and almost as many cultish religions. Adelinda had the full measure of contempt for the preachers and priests of these cults, who were either self-de-luded or outright frauds. At first she had tended to lump Li-Mun in with those social parasites.

  Somewhat to her surprise, she found that she liked him, and that he was an intelligent and articulate man. They spent many hours talking of Godsland, ostensibly practicing the language. But Adelinda was keenly aware that she was also getting an education in the attitudes and customs of his country. Li-Mun no doubt told her far more than he intended; he liked to talk and Adelinda was a good listener. Even so, she was aware that there was still more that he could have told that he did not. To inquire into certain areas meant an immediate change of subject, and she could not help but wonder why he was being less than honest with her. This knowledge kept her a little wary.

  At last the blue coast of Godsland appeared over the horizon; the ships docked in a quiet bay, and the wan, staggering victims of seasickness made their appearance, gazing about them as those raised from the dead might peer about the precincts of their tombs. The horses, too, were glad to be unloaded and given a chance to stretch their stiffened limbs and roll away the itches of many days in their confining shipboard stalls.

  The visitors from the Kingdom were amazed at the lush greenness of the land through which they rode. The incredible variety of plants, the many lakes and ponds, the hazy, heavy-scented atmosphere were as different from their own clear-aired mountains and canyons as if they had crossed a great golf of space, rather than a mere few thousand miles of ocean. There were no tangled forests, but only open parklike woods. The hills were as gently rounded as a girl’s breast, and their greenness as muted a shade as twilight’s own dimness. Even the flowers that drifted in banks over the sloping flanks of the hills or nestled in the dells were delicate and subdued in hue.