Sorcerer's Son (11 page)

“An animal that large,” she said, her voice pitched to rise above the tumult of their complaints. “You don’t know what he’ll do, you little fools. Get away now, get away from him!”

“A fair morning to you, good wife,” Cray said, smiling broadly. “It’s a wise mother that looks after her young ones so well.”

She glared at him. “Who are you, stranger, and what do you want?”

“My friend and I have been long upon the road, good lady, and we came to ask if we might fill our flasks and water our horse at your well.”

“I suppose you may. There’s a trough for the horse.” She flicked a thumb toward a low wooden basin some paces from the well. “Fill it at your pleasure.” She walked away.

Cray smiled again and nodded at her retreating back, and then he dropped the bucket into the well and began hauling water up. He had scarcely splashed the first measure into the trough when he felt a small hand tugging at his surcoat. He looked down at a tow-headed child of six or seven summers. “Yes?”

“May I ride the horse?”

Cray squatted beside her. “It’s a very big horse, child.”

“I wouldn’t fall off.”

“Well, what would your mother say to that?”

“You could walk beside me.”

“And what if you fell off on the other side?”

“Your friend could walk there.”

Cray had to smile. “If you’ll wait till my horse has had a drink, I’ll let you ride him, but just for a little time, because we have a long journey ahead of us.”

The child nodded and sat down with her back against the stones of the well. In the shade of the nearest hut, half a dozen paces away, her playmates whispered and giggled among themselves, but none dared join her.

Cray filled the trough and stood by while Gallant drank and Sepwin drew another bucket to replenish the flasks. Before long, three more villagers, men this time, approached the strangers, walking a wide circle about the well. Cray smiled at each of them in turn, and when he judged they had looked their fill, he hailed the brawniest of the lot.

“Would you have a horse for sale, good sir?”

The man crossed his arms upon a massive chest and said, “You have a horse, I see.”

“But none for my friend,” Cray replied. “His mount died some days ago, and we have not found another for him yet. We thought you might have an extra animal here.”

“How did his horse die?” asked the man.

“A misstep upon the road. The poor creature broke its leg and we were forced to destroy it.”

The man glanced at his fellows. “There might be an extra horse in the village.” He beckoned to the others, and they moved together, speaking softly. After a time, one of them looked back to Cray.

“What can you pay?” he asked.

“I have a piece of silver,” said Cray.

The villagers’ conversation resumed, more loudly this time, and at last the brawny man broke away from the other two and said to Cray, “We seem to have three extra horses in this village.”

“I need only one,” said Cray.

“You may choose the best of the three, if you wish.”

Cray nodded.

The men separated, and while each went in search of his horse, Cray lifted the little girl into Gallant’s saddle and walked her around the well. She was very quiet on top of the horse, very wide-eyed, and she clung to its mane with both hands.

“Have you ever ridden a horse before?” Cray asked her.

“Yes, but not such a big one. It’s so high!” And she loosed one hand for only a moment, to wave quickly at her playmates, who stared from the shade with envious eyes. “Does he have a name?” she asked Cray.

“I call him Gallant.”

At the sound of its name, Gallant halted and turned its head inquiringly. Cray stroked its neck once and urged it forward.

“He’s a good horse,” said the girl.

“Oh, yes, a very good horse,” agreed Cray.

“Are you a knight?”

Cray smiled. “Not yet. But I will be.”

“I saw a knight once. He had a big horse, too.” She turned to Sepwin, walking on the other side of Gallant. “You’re not a knight.”

“No, no, not I,” replied the beggar.

“What’s wrong with your eye?”

Sepwin hesitated, then said, “I hurt it.”

“If you hurt it, where is the blood?”

“I hurt it a long time ago.”

“If it was a long time ago, why do you need that bandage?”

“Because it doesn’t look nice.”

“It doesn’t?” The child leaned toward him. “Can I see it?”

“Careful—you’ll fall off if you lean like that!”

Even as he spoke, she began to slip sideways. Cray called a warning and clutched at her leg as it went over the top of the saddle, but he missed it. He halted Gallant with a tug of the reins, then ducked under the horse’s neck to see what had happened. Sepwin was just setting the child down on the ground. She was gripping his rag bandage in one dirty hand.

“You said it didn’t look nice,” she said in an accusatory tone.

“Don’t you think so?” he muttered, jerking the rag away from her. He kept his left eye tightly closed as he swiftly fastened the rag in place once more.

“No,” she replied. She looked up at Cray. “Thank you for the ride,” she said, making a little curtsey, and then she ran to join her playmates, to whisper and giggle with them.

The brawny man returned with a small brown horse, which he displayed to Cray proudly. “Not old at all,” he said, prying the animal’s mouth open to show the teeth.

Cray, to whom the horse’s teeth meant nothing, surveyed the animal and found nothing particularly wrong with it. “This looks to be a reasonably good animal.”

Sepwin tugged at his sleeve. “This animal is older than you are, Master Cray.”

“Oh? How can you tell?”

“The teeth. The pattern of the teeth.”

Cray looked at his companion. “So you know horseflesh?”

“A little, sir. My father raised some.”

“Good, then you can pick your own mount. Here comes another offer, if I’m not mistaken.”

A second man approached, the tallest of the three, leading a horse whose dark coat was flecked with gray. Sepwin walked all around the animal, looked into its mouth, picked up its hooves one at a time and examined them. “Not bad,” he said.

The third animal arrived shortly, a dark one with a white blaze on the forehead. Its back had a distinct slump in the middle. Sepwin looked it over, then looked at the others again. “Take the roan,” he said at last, indicating the second animal.

Cray nodded. “Have you a saddle for it?” he asked its owner.

“This is a plowhorse,” the man told him. “She’s never known a saddle.”

“Has she ever been ridden?” asked Sepwin.

“Oh, the children ride her all the time. And I have, too. She’s gentle as a lamb, you’ll see. She won’t give you any trouble.”

“Give me a blanket to throw over her back and I’ll ride her,” said Sepwin.

“The blanket will cost you extra,” said the man.

Cray laughed. “I’ll give you a copper penny besides the silver, if it’s a good blanket.”

“Oh, the best, my lord, the very best,” he said, and he called a name toward the group of children who were whispering nearby. A small boy answered, whom Cray guessed was his son, ran to him, received orders to fetch a particular gray blanket, and scampered off to obey. The lad returned in a few moments with a heavy woollen bundle which his father unrolled and threw over the horse’s back. In return for a silver coin and a copper one, the man handed the animal’s reins over to Cray, who passed them on to Sepwin.

As they were preparing to mount, the small boy piped, “Before you leave, sir, may I see your eye?”

Sepwin looked at him, and with his free hand he pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulders. He said nothing.

The father cuffed his son. “What sort of question is that?” To Sepwin he said, “Forgive the boy, sir. He’s very young and full of curiosity.”

His hand covering the cheek that had been struck, the boy said in somewhat muffled tones, “Eda says his eyes aren’t both the same color, Father, and I don’t believe her.”

“What nonsense!” said his father. The girl who had ridden Gallant ran to join them, “It’s true—one is brown and the other is blue. Isn’t it true, stranger?”

Sepwin shook his head. “The child is imagining things.”

“The covered eye is blue, it really is! I saw it!”

“It is an empty socket,” said Sepwin, and he grasped his horse’s mane to pull himself up.

“Your father will beat you for lying when he comes home!” the boy shouted at his playmate.

“It’s true!” she said.

The boy’s father laid a hand on Sepwin’s arm, kept him from mounting. “Is it true?” he asked.

Sepwin faced him. “What if it were?” he demanded.

The man opened his hand, showed the silver and copper. “I could not bargain with such a one.”

“You have bargained with me,” said Cray, one hand on the cantle of Gallant’s saddle. “There is nothing wrong with my eyes.”

“But the horse is for him,” the man said, nodding toward Sepwin. “Let him show his eye.”

“It is an ugly wound,” said Sepwin.

“I have a strong stomach.” He glanced at the boy and girl. “Go, children. There is nothing here for you to see.”

“But father—” the boy began.

“I said go.”

Reluctantly, the lad moved off, and at another glance from his father, the girl followed, casting many a backward look as she went.

“What nonsense is this?” asked Cray.

“Take off the bandage,” said the man to Sepwin, “or you will not ride my horse beyond these walls.” The other men, who had drawn back when Sepwin chose his horse, crowded close now, their own horses forgotten and ambling loose toward the water trough. The men nodded to their fellow’s demand. “Take off the bandage.”

Sepwin stood with his back against his mount’s flank, one hand clutching the crude rein that hung from its rope halter. His lips were tight, his face pale in spite of its tan. “Leave me alone,” he said.

The boy’s father threw the coins down into the dust. “I don’t want a monster’s money.” Then he reached out slowly and pulled the rag from Sepwin’s head. “Open your eye.”

Blinking against the sunlight, the beggar obeyed.

Cray was too far away to see the color of the eye, but when the tall villager lunged forward to close his hands about Sepwin’s throat, he could guess it. With one quick motion he jerked his sword from its scabbard at Gallant’s saddle and, shouting, raised it high. All three villagers had fallen upon Sepwin by then and borne him to the ground under his horse’s agitated feet; if they heard Cray’s voice above their own wild cries, they paid it no attention. Cray kicked the nearest man with one booted foot and then, swinging the sword once above his head, he brought the flat of the blade down on the fellow’s buttocks. The villager let go of Sepwin immediately and rolled over, scrambling away on his hands and knees, his terrified gaze on the sword. Cray brought it down again, and yet again, and added a few more judicious kicks, and Sepwin’s attackers backed off.

“I’ll kill the first one who lays another hand on him!” Cray shouted. With his free hand, he pulled Sepwin to his feet. “Get on that horse,” he hissed, pushing the beggar toward the nervously dancing animal.

Sepwin staggered and coughed, clutching his throat, but he managed to mount, and he did not need another order from Cray to kick his horse to a gallop. By the time Cray vaulted into his saddle, Sepwin’s horse was leaping the low wall at the edge of the village and speeding west along the road. Cray followed. He glanced back only once, to see the three villagers standing behind the wall, shaking their fists at the departing strangers. The children and a few other inhabitants of the settlement had joined them, and they all clustered close together, as if hemmed in by invisible boundaries. No one stepped beyond the wall.

Sepwin rode, his body bent low to his horse’s back. Cray caught up and pulled abreast, calling for him to slow down, but Sepwin paid no attention. Soon his horse’s sides were covered with white foam, and Gallant, too, had begun to sweat.

“You’ll kill your horse!” shouted Cray.

Sepwin looked at him with wild eyes, and from this distance Cray could see the difference in color, the darkness of the right and the paleness of the left.

“They’ll never catch us!” shouted Cray. “You must stop!”

Sepwin shook his head.

“You’re safe!” Cray screamed, and then he eased back on his own reins, slowing Gallant to a prancing, snorting stop. He sat still in the middle of the road while Sepwin disappeared in the distance ahead.

“I didn’t buy that horse to have you kill it!” he shouted, but he knew that the beggar was too far away to hear.

He let Gallant walk then and cool off, and he looked back occasionally, even though he was sure that no one was following. The afternoon had waned considerably when he came upon Sepwin and his horse in a stand of trees that marked the edge of the cultivated fields. The road forked there, the northerly path skirting the grain, the westerly leading into rolling land of intermittent forest and tall, wild grasses. Sepwin was rubbing his mount down vigorously with the gray blanket. Both of his eyes were uncovered, the rag bandage left behind in the village. At Cray’s approach he moved behind his horse, placing it between them like a wall. Gallant, though, was so much taller than the village nag that Cray could look over the latter at Sepwin.

“Good evening,” said Cray. “I trust you had a pleasant ride.”

“You may jest,” muttered Sepwin, “you with two eyes of the same color.”

“You won’t run away from me, will you, Master Feldar?”

“Should I?”

“I don’t care about your eyes.”

Sepwin leaned against his horse, arms crossed upon its back. “Everyone cares,” he said. “This was not the first time that I’ve run from folk. Sometimes they throw stones instead of attacking me with their hands.”

“But why?”

Sepwin closed the brown eye, then opened it and closed the blue. “Which one do you think is the evil eye?”

Cray shrugged. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Neither!” shouted Sepwin, and his horse started and tossed its head, and he had to soothe it with stroking hands. “Neither,” he said more quietly. “Yet I have been driven from every human settlement where I’ve shown both of them. I’ve been stoned, spat upon, kicked, flogged. No honest work for me, no friends; even my parents finally cast me out!”