The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped (8 page)

“We had become decadent,” she said. “That’s what Plandybast said to someone at the last dinner. That Danderbat keep was decadent. That we hadn’t any juice anymore.”

He nodded solemnly. “So. If he’s still alive, Hagglefree, I mean, then we should be all right.”

“If he had a sister. If she had a boy. If he keeps servants, for some do not. We might be better to make up a name, Mertyn. Make one up.”

He thought for a moment, said, “The Wizard Himaggery. That’s who we are connected with.”

“And where is his Demesne?”

“Ah ... let’s see. His Demesne is down the middle river somewhere, toward the southern seas. There’s lots of blank space on the maps down there. No one knows what’s there, really.” He put his hand in hers, “Shall we swear it, Mavin? Shall it be our Game?”

“Let it be our game, brother. The campground is ahead, and we will see how it sits with the people there when I buy us supper and a bed.”

“Do you have money, Mavin? I brought a little. I didn’t have much.”

“I didn’t have much either, brother boy, but I took some from the cooks’ cache before they left. It will get us to Battlefox the Bright Day—if we are careful.”

The wagon driver leaned back toward them, gesturing toward the firelights down the road. “That the place you were going, young sirs? There it is. Calihiggy Campground. I’ll take the wagon no further, for I’ve no mind to have my hay stolen during the dark hours. I’ll sell it to the campmaster come morning.”

They thanked him and left him, then wandered out of the gloaming into the firelight before a half hundred pairs of eyes, both curious and incurious.

It was the first time Mavin had been anywhere outside the keep of the Danderbats where she had needed to speak, bargain, purchase, seem a traveler more widely experienced than in fact she was. She did it rather creditably, she thought, then noticed that the man to whom she spoke smiled frequently at Mertyn with a glazed expression. Shaking her head ruefully, she accepted the bedding she was offered and allowed them to be guided to a tent pitched near the western edge of the ground, near Calihiggy Creek and a distance from the privies.

“I thought I told you not to do that,” she hissed.

“I had to,” he said sulkily. “The man was beginning to think you were a runaway pawn from some Demesne or other. You stuttered.”

“Well. I haven’t practiced this.”

“You’ve got to seem very sure of yourself,” he said. “If you seem very sure of yourself, everyone believes you. If you stutter or worry, then everyone else begins to stutter and worry inside their heads.”

“I thought you had Ruler Talent, not Demon Talent to go reading what’s in people’s heads.”

“It isn’t like that. I can just feel it is all. Anyhow, it didn’t hurt anything. Now you’ve got to practice walking as though you knew just where you were going, and when you talk, do it slowly. As though you didn’t care whether you talked or not. And don’t smile, until they do. I’m tired. What did you get us to eat?”

“I got hot meat pies, three of them, and some fruit. You can have thrilps or rainhat berries.”

He had both, and two of the pies. Mavin contented herself with one. They weren’t bad. Evidently some family from a little village along the road brought a wagonload of them to the camp every day or so, and the campmaster heated them in his own oven. When they had done, they wandered a bit through the camp, trying to identify all the Gamesmen they saw, and then went back to their tent.

“No one is looking for us,” Mavin said. “No one at all. They’ve all gone back to Danderbat keep. And likely we will not see Handbright again until we come to Battlefox. Well, it’s less adventurous than I’d thought.”

“It’s adventurous enough,” the child responded, voice half dazed with sleep. “Enough. Lie down, Mavin.”

She sat down, then lay down, then pulled the blankets up to her chin. They were only three days away from the place she had lived all her life, and already the memory of it was beginning to dim and fade. She was no longer very angry, she realized in a kind of panic. The anger had fueled her all this way, and now it was dwindled, lost somewhere in the leagues they had traveled. Something else would have to take its place.

She thought about this, but not long before the dark crawled into her head and made everything quiet there.

When morning came, she went out into it, telling herself what Mertyn had told her the night before. She watched how the men of the camp walked, and walked as they did, watched their faces as they talked and made her face take the same expression. She went first to the campmaster to ask whether he knew of a wagon going to Pfarb Durim, following his laconic directions to a large encampment among the trees in the river bottom. There she confronted a dozen faces neither hostile nor welcoming and had to take tight control in order that her voice not tremble.

“I greet you, Gamesmen,” she began, safely enough, for there were a good many Gamesdresses in the group. “My young charge and I travel toward Pfarb Durim. Our mounts were lost in a storm in the mountains through which we have come, and we seek transport and company for the remaining way.”

There was among the group a gray-headed one, still strong and virile-looking, but with something sad and questioning about his face. He looked up from his plate—for they were all occupied with breakfast—and said, “As do we all, young man. You have not told us who you are?” He set his plate down beside him, the motion leading Mavin’s eyes to the spot, and she saw a Seer’s gauze mask lying there, the moth wings painted upon it bright in the morning light.

“Sir Seer.” She bowed. “I am servant of one Wizard, Himaggery of the Wetlands and I have in my care thalan to the Wizard, the child Mertyn.”

“So. Would you have us escort you against future favors from your Wizardry master? Can you bargain on his behalf?” This was shrewdly said, as though he tested her, but Mavin was equal to this.

“Indeed no, sir. He would have me in ... have my head off me if I pretended such a thing. I ask only such assistance as my master’s purse will bear, such part of it as he entrusts to me.” She felt a small hand creep into her own, and realized that Mertyn had come up beside her. A quick glance showed that he was simply standing there, very quietly, with a trusting expression on his face.

“Ah.” The Seer seemed to think this over. He had a knotty face, a strong face, but with a kind of strangeness in it as though it were hard for him to decide what expression that face would wear. His hair was a little long, thrust back over his ears in white wings, and he had laid the cloak of the Seer aside to sit in his shirt and vest. The others around the fire watched him, made no effort to offer any suggestion. These were mostly young men, no more than nineteen or twenty, with a few among them obviously servants. The horses at the picket line were blanketed in crimson and black, obviously the colors of some high Demesne around which Gamesmen gathered. At last one of the young men walked over to them to stand an arm’s-length from Mavin and look her over from toe to head, his own head cocked and his expression curious and friendly.

“Windlow, our teacher, does not make up his mind in any sudden way. You still have not told him who you are—your name.”

“His name is Mavin,” said Mertyn in his most childlike voice. “He is very nice, and you would like him very much.”

“My name is Mavin,” she agreed, bowing, and pinching Mertyn’s arm a good tweak as she did so. “A harmless person, offering no Game.” She glared at Mertyn covertly.

The man who had been named Windlow spoke again from the fire. “There is always Game, youngster. The very bunwits play, and the flitchhawks in the air. There is no owl without his game, nor any fustigar. You cannot live and offer no game.”

“He means ...” began Mertyn.

“I meant,” she said firmly, “that I seek only transport, sirs. Nothing more.”

“Surely we can accommodate them, Windlow?” the young man said. “After all, we’re going there. And we have extra horses. And neither of them weighs enough for a horse to notice, even if we had to carry them double.”

“Oh, ah,” said Windlow. “It isn’t the horses, Twizzledale. It’s the vision. Concerning these—this. I had it the moment they walked into view. Curious. It seems to have nothing at all to do with anything happening soon, or even for quite a while. And it wasn’t this one at all”—he pointed to Mavin—“but what seemed to be his sister. Looked very much like his sister. And this child grown up and teaching school somewhere. Most unlikely. But you were in it, too, Twizzledale, and you didn’t seem unhappy about it, so one can only hope it is for the best.”

The young man laughed and turned back to offer his hand, which Mavin took in her own, grasping it with as manish a pressure as she could, so that he winced and shook his own in pretended pain. “So. Then it is settled. You will come with us the day or two to Pfarb Durim. I am Fon Twizzledale, like to be, so they tell me, Wizardly in persuasion. Yon is Prince Valdon Duymit, thalan of High King Prionde of the High Demesne. Our teacher, Seer Windlow, you have met. These are our people, all as kindly in intent as you yourself claim to be. Welcome, and will you join us for breakfast?”

Mertyn let his childish treble soar in enthusiasm. “Oh, yes sirs. I am very tired of smoky meat.” And more quietly to Fon Twizzledale, “Did he truly have a vision about us?”

“He truly did,” the young man asserted, “if he said he did. I have never known Windlow to say anything which is not strictly and literally true.”

“I thank you for your kindness,” Mavin interjected, “but you have not yet told me what price you place upon your company.”

Windlow shook his gray head impatiently, as though the idea were one which did not matter and distracted him from some other idea which did matter. “Oh, come along, come along. There is no payment necessary. The Fon is quite right. We have extra mounts, and neither of you appears to be a glutton. Have you eaten? Did they say they had eaten?” he appealed to Prince Valdon, saturnine in his dress of red and black.

That one’s mouth twisted in a prideful sneer of distaste. “The child seems ready to eat, Gamesmaster. Children usually are, if I remember rightly.”

“Yes, please,” said Mertyn, casting his grave smile at Valdon’s face, on his best behavior, edging away from Mavin’s clutching fingers toward the Seer. “I would like some of whatever you are having. It smells very good.”

The Seer’s face lightened, an expression of surprising sweetness which drove away the slightly peevish expression of concentration he had worn since they had walked into the camp. Mavin thought, “He was having a vision, but he couldn’t quite get it, and it was like a dream he was fishing for. Now it is gone.” In which she was quite correct, for Windlow had had a vivid flash of Seeing somehow wrapped around the two of them, but it had eluded him like a slippery fish hi the stream of his thoughts. Now it was gone, and he turned from it almost in relief. Too often the Seeings were of future terror and pain.

“Well, come fill a bowl, then,” he said to Mertyn. “And tell your sister—no. No. How stupid of me. Tell your ... cicerone to join us, too.” He turned to Mavin. “Forgive me, young sir. Sometimes vision and reality confuse themselves and I am not certain what I have seen and am seeing. I seemed to see the boy’s sister. ...”

Mavin bowed slightly, face carefully calm. Across the fire she could see Twizzledale’s face fixed on her own, an expression of bemusement there, of thoughtful calculation. “No forgiveness necessary,” she said. “The boy’s sister is far from here.” And that, she thought, is very true. She accepted a bowl of the food. It was indeed very savory smelling.

“My good servant, Jonathan Went, that scowling old fellow over there by the wagon, saves all the bones from the bunwits whenever we have a feast. I’m talking about you, Jonathan! Well, he saves the bones and cooks them up into a marvelous broth with onions and lovely little bulblets from the tuleeky plant and bits of this and that. Then he uses the broth to cook our morning gram, and sometimes he puts eggs and bits of zeller bacon into it as well. Remarkable. Then we are all very complimentary and cheerful, and he goes over by the wagon and pretends he does not hear us. Modest fellow. The best cook between here and the High Demesne. King Prionde himself made the fellow an offer, but he would not leave me and the King was kind enough not to press the matter. Ah. Good, isn’t it?”

“Very,” gasped Mertyn, his mouth full.

“It is delicious,” agreed Mavin. The grain was tender, rich with broth and bunwit fat, and she could taste wood mushrooms in it as well. She sighed, for the moment heavily content. Across the fire Fon Twizzledale stared at her, his head cocked to one side. Farther away the proud Prince sat looking toward her but across her shoulder as though she did not exist, his small crown glittering in the early sun. She found herself liking the one, wary of the other. “Careful,” she warned herself. “There was a time you liked old Graywing, too.”

The meal was soon done. In her role of servant, Mavin moved to help those who were packing the wagons and loading the pack animals. There were indeed many extra mounts, and she found herself atop one of them with no very clear idea what to do next. Being a horse and riding a horse were two different things, but she kept her face impassive and paid careful attention to those around her. With Mertyn on the pad before her she clucked to the horse as others around her were doing, and it moved off after them, head nodding in time to its steps in an appearance of bored colloquy. Mertyn leaned comfortably against her and whispered, “You won’t need to do anything, Mavin. This horse will follow that one’s tail. I heard some of the visitors talking at Assembly time, too. About riding horses, I mean. They say you’re supposed to hold on with your legs. Can you hold on with your legs?”

“Brother mine,” she whispered in return, “remember that I am the well schooled servant—upper servant—of a Wizard. Of course I can ride a horse. Didn’t you tell me I can do anything I think I can?”

He giggled, then lapsed into silence, rolling his head from side to side on her chest to see the country they were traveling through.

Calihiggy Creek was a sizeable flow, emptying into the River Haws at the conjunction of two valleys, the narrow north-south one of the Haws, the wide, desolate east-west one of the Creek. Here the waters had cut deep ravines into the flat valley bottom so that the water flowed deep below the surface of the soil. What plants grew there were dry and dusty looking, more suited to a desert than a river valley, though at the edges of the cliffs there were scattered groves of dark trees. They clattered briefly over a long wooden bridge, high above the Haws.