The Ancient Enemy (19 page)

A message was drafted at once and sent south to the capital city. The magistrate, Frey Wot, bound Ulghrum over to the custody of the constable, who put him in the single cell that served as a lockup in the village. It was really a meditation cell attached to the Fane of the Spirit, but it was fitted with a heavy oak door that could be bolted shut top and bottom from the outside.

Thru joined the constable in his office as charge papers were made out. Thru signed a statement that gave his part in the matter.

"Iallia Treevi may well be in danger now," Thru pointed out.

"She will go back to the Tramines. She cannot stay with Pern anymore."

"Unfortunately, she's pregnant."

"She can annul the marriage, on the basis of her fears. The child will then be raised a Tramine. Unless Pern can win custody, which I doubt. Pern has managed to tar himself with a lot of doubt and suspicion in a very short time. I wouldn't be surprised if the Assenzi took a look at him."

"If there's to be a trial, it will probably be held in Dronned, and you will be called to testify. Will I be able to contact you at your father's house?"

"No, I will leave an address. I will be in Tamf."

"I see." The constable pursed his lips, obviously not approving.

"In the spring I will be on the road, traveling with the troupe. I will send you an itinerary of our movements if you like."

"Mmmm, I expect the trial will be held sooner than that. Leave me an address in Tamf, and you'll be notified when a date's been decided on."

That night the taproom at the tavern was filled well past the normal hours as folk gathered to talk over the extraordinary events that had befallen the village. Pern Treevi was behind it all, that was certain, but Ulghrum had said nothing incriminating yet.

The tongues were wagging until the middle of the night, when the landlord finally shut up the saloon room and closed his door and put out the lights.

The folk made their way home, still talking.

In the morning the constable found that someone had come in the night and thrown back the bolts. Ulghrum was gone.

Within minutes the entire village was gathered down by the temple fane, and shortly a posse was sent out to search. It returned at nightfall after following tracks that seemed to peter out down the highway toward Dronned.

Over the next day or so several messages were sent to Dronned, and a guard was placed over Iallia Tramine, who had moved back into the Tramine house. Only a couple of servants remained in Pern Treevi's big house up on the hill.

Thru returned to the labors of autumn, working in the seapond, putting in a new drainage system for part of the family polder. Hard work, but useful, and at the end of each day there was measurable progress. Ware, Gil, and Thru all found themselves enjoying this time together. Even Ual was appeased to some extent.

Then one morning the weather-beaten visage of Ushk, crewmot of the
Conch
, appeared in the village, asking for Thru Gillo. There was intense suspicion at once of poor Ushk, who was on the verge of being arrested when Thru came running up, having been alerted as to what was happening.

The villagers apologized to old Ushk while Thru grabbed his pack and his bow. Then after a lengthy round of farewells, with tears from Ual, and more tears from Snejet, Thru set off with Ushk down the lane to the beach. On board the
Conch
he found the holds stuffed with dried fish and Captain Olok in a fine mood.

"We be tearing along with this fine wind. Be back in Tamf harbor tomorrow, I reckon."

Once he'd reached Tamf, Thru had taken a room above a laundry on South Road, outside the walls and down near the bridge over the Tam. It was a spare space at first, but soon Thru acquired a few bits and pieces to make it home. First a bed and then some furniture, finally a loom and three long racks to hold fiber and weaves.

While he settled himself into his new lodgings he set to work on a "Leaf" mat, and presented it to Nuza's mother on his first visit to her house. It had been accepted, but coolly. Despite their own troubadour pasts, both of them thought Nuza should retire from the life of the acrobat and marry a local farmer.

"It is much safer to live in a village," said Nuza's mother. "An acrobat gets one injury, and her career is threatened."

"She gets two, and it is over," said her father.

Nuza simply smiled and gave Thru a wink whenever possible.

"Are you sure he's acceptable to the Dronned Guild?" said her father. "They are a very exclusive Guild up there, even more than our own in Tamf."

Nuza jumped in on that, of course. "The Dronned weavers have a high reputation, but Thru's work is better than theirs. Really, wait until you see some of his best. Do you like the 'Leaf' pattern?"

"It is different from the usual."

Nuza could tell that her mother did not approve of Thru or of Nuza's making love to him. She sighed. She'd been afraid of this.

Thereafter their meetings had usually been here in his rough-and-ready room on the South Road. Around them the road echoed with the sounds of cobblers and blacksmiths at work, not to mention the bakery and the laundry below his own room. Despite Assenzi efforts, Tamf, like Dronned and most other cities of the Land, had grown beyond its old walls. Now most of the noisy and smelly industrial activities were carried out in suburban areas, while the city itself was largely residential.

Thru had come to like his big room, although he pined for Kussha's cooking. In Tamf, Thru was getting used to a diet of sweet tea, bread, and sugared rolls from the cookshops on the South Road.

He had started on a "Chooks and Beetles" for Nuza, and had made drawings of a "Mussels and Rakes" that was unlike any he had ever seen. His mussels were large and crudely drawn, and he would use dark green and black fiber for the dark areas and a hard, chalky white for the few areas of relief. Twelve pairs of mussels, each pair different from the rest in subtle ways, would run down the length of the mat, and to either side were the long rakes, crossed handles, dark iron tines at the bottom. For background he used a pale blue fiber made from cornstalk to suggest the sky and then shifted to a slate grey for the lower half, on which he wove a pattern in black to outline the stones of the seapond bottom. He was excited with the work, thinking about it even when he was away from the loom.

Nuza stirred beside him in the bed. She usually slept for an hour or so after they made love. The light was beginning to fade, and she would be expected back at her own house shortly. Her mother had become critical of any absences from the evening meal. Nuza was trying not to let the storm break while she kept the two halves of her life widely separated. Thru stroked the soft fur on the back of her head and ran his fingers down her neck. She stretched luxuriantly under his touch, with the suppleness of a cat.

Thru hadn't pushed for more visits to the family house. Except for her visits he spent his time working, breaking only long enough to grab a quick bowl of chowder now and then. He had an urge to make every second count.

"Leaf" mats piled up on the rack. When he had six of them he switched to a new pattern, this time a dramatic reworking of "Bushpod" with bright green pods entwined with stems in yellow on a reddish background.

Nuza was convinced that he was on his way to acceptance as a significant artist. He was proposing the most radical shift in mat weave since the great Oromi. Behind his radical notions lay interesting design and solid competence in weaving technique.

She was awake by then, sitting up with the quilt around her breasts, her eyes blinking in the dim light of late afternoon.

"Did you sleep?" he asked.

"Yes, but I dreamed my mother was scolding me."

"Ah." He grinned. "You know, I can imagine how that must have felt." Nuza snuggled up against him.

"I really didn't expect her to be so difficult."

"Well, my mother gave me a good going-over before I got out of the village. She hates the thought that I might settle with someone outside of her own kin."

"That's the old village way of thought."

"I suppose I won't be invited to dinner on Midwinter fest."

"At the moment, no. But I think the troupe will hold their own dinner, at the vagabond's hall."

"And where will you be?"

"I will be at home. Mother will expect me to wait on her while she decorates the tree. It is a very solemn occasion in her family."

"Then I will loft a cup of mead in your direction before I sing with Hob and the rest of them. At least they seem like a cheerful crew."

"Everyone except Toshak. You'll find he's a quiet soul on that day. No one knows why."

"He never told you?"

"Toshak has many mysteries in his past. That is just a minor one."

She rose and dressed. She wore thick wool trousers and knee-high brown boots. Her blouse and tunic were of finest grey Mauste, and at her throat she wound a pale blue scarf of silk from Geld.

"When can you come again?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe the day after tomorrow. Mother has taken to trying to keep me busy with holiday preparations. She watches me like a hawk watches a rabbit."

"There's a meeting of the Questioners that day."

"Will you go?"

"Yes, especially if you do."

"It's at the house of the reverend elder, Mekel Hooser. You'll find it on River Road, close to the north gate."

Thru was holding her hands, looking into her eyes. "When I look at you, I think the Questioners must be wrong. There had to be a plan to make the world so fine and fair. It had to be guided by a beneficent spirit to bring me something so beautiful."

She smiled. "Flattery will take you far, my lover."

They spent the next few days together as much as possible until, at the last minute he decided to return to Warkeen for the festival. Nuza was going to be completely wrapped up in her own family's doings for the festival, and his own parents desperately wanted to see him at their table.

By great good fortune, the trade ship
Elmert
was in Tamf harbor and about to leave for the north. The wind was favorable and the
Elmert
made Dronned the next day. From there his luck continued, and a local fishing boat took him around to the estuary of the Dristen River. From the beach he walked up to the village and caught everyone by surprise. The joyful noise in the Gillo household brought inquisitive neighbors from all directions, and soon there was a party in progress.

The festival itself began the next day with the biggest feast of the year. In the morning there was a packed ceremony at the Fane of the Spirit and at noon an athletic contest. If the river had frozen in time, there would be skating and curling contests on the ice. Otherwise, there would be a footrace up the road to Meever's and back, the winner to become the feted Winter King.

This was one of the years of mild winter weather. The river had scarcely frozen at all, and so the race to Meever's was run. Thru was not the fleetest of mots, and though he was capable of running the distance, he doubted that he'd come in even in the first fifty. Instead he watched the runners start and then sat in Snejet's parlor and washed down a pie of honeyed bushpod with some mulled ale.

Snejet was obviously very happy in marriage. She wore tiny white-and-pink ribbons tied into the fur of her head and spoke happily about all that had happened in his absence.

"The harvest was very good. We sold Merchant Yadrone a fair ton of bushpod. Father was very pleased. He plans to put on fresh thatch for the whole house next year."

"And how has Gil been?"

"Gil has grown now that he's out of your shadow, brother. With his help and with Oiv, we've been able to free Ware from farm work so he can concentrate on carving. That's helped a lot, too."

Thru was cheered by all this news. But the inevitable question had to be asked.

"And Mother?"

"Oh, Thru, she grieves. When she thinks no one is listening she weeps. It's so sad to hear her, but she cannot be comforted."

Thru acknowledged that he had caused their mother hurt, but he refused to be talked into staying in Warkeen through the rest of the winter. His path was set, and it lay in Tamf.

"No one has come forward to claim the reward put on that villain Ulghrum."

"I didn't expect they would capture him. He's gone south. I expect he's in Fauste or maybe even Mauste."

"Funny you should say that, brother, because we heard that Pern has gone to Mauste. He has some plan for learning the secrets of making Mauste cloth. Everyone in the village hopes he stays there and never comes back."

"And Arin Huggles?"

"Has never been seen again."

"Ach, so I feared. A bad business that."

"Iallia isn't seen around much either. She stays in the Tramine house. I talk to the Tramine mors, and they say she's gone very cold and hardly has a kind word for anyone."

Snejet's gossippy tongue roved on. There was dame Eltha Bik's loss of memory, and Hinger Alford's incredible hive of bees, which had produced a record amount of honey that year.

"Hinger says they're amazing. He's had only one sting from them all season, too."

Then, at last, it was time to go downstairs for Ual's festival feast. Ware had already broached a keg of winter ale and the chooks were having a wild party in the yard. Chooks were notoriously light of head when it came to ale. Now the roosters were crowing and the hens were dancing while a foot drum thundered away to keep the beat.

Ual and Gil brought out platters of stuffed crabs with bushpod crepes in honey. Then came a whole salmon baked on the hot coals and later a haunch of venison, roasted over a fire in the yard.

After the meal the family went down to the green in the center of the village.

Chooks, already well stuffed with bushpod and beans, were given more ale before they started their midwinter dance. It celebrated the role of the chook in the village economy, for chooks suppressed insect pests to such an extent that the village harvest was doubled from what it would have been without the big foolish fowls. After a while the jumping of the chooks infected even the oldest mots and mors, replete though they were, and they too got to their feet and started dancing.