The Riddle (65 page)

Hem studied his feet closely. He wasn’t going to admit that he was stealing mangoes if no one had accused him; he would be thrown out for sure. Saliman sighed heavily and stood up.

“After a great many courtesies and sweetmeats, and after offering to place the spell of bounty on his house, a most exhausting and complicated charm, I may add, and also promising that I would whip you soundly, I managed to soothe him. Alimbar is a hasty and impatient man, quick to take offense — and to give it, truth be told. I had to swallow my pride at least three times, and that goes hard for Saliman of Turbansk. But you almost caused a most difficult friction between the School of Turbansk and the Court, and it could not be worse timed.”

Hem stared at the floor until his eyes burned, only half comprehending what Saliman was saying.

“Hem,” Saliman continued gravely. “I am very angry with you, and I ought to punish you. But, to be honest, I don’t believe it would make anything better than it is. So I will not be whipping you. Although perhaps that is merely to save what little shred of my pride remains.”

“So you’re not going to send me away?” Despite himself, Hem’s voice wavered.

Saliman looked surprised. “Send you away? Whether you stay here or not is your decision, Hem, not mine. No, I would not send you away.”

Hem gave an involuntary sigh of relief. He was not afraid of being whipped, although no one had beaten him since he had met Maerad, and perhaps he had lost some of his old toughness. But now Saliman was standing with his back to him, looking out of the window. He was silent for a long time, and Hem began to feel ashamed of himself.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, when the silence had stretched out too long.

“But are you, Hem?” asked Saliman, turning around. “Are you really sorry? It is not enough to say so, and then to do the same thing again.”

Now Saliman’s face was very serious, and a fluttering started in the boy’s stomach. When Saliman was happy with him, Hem felt exultant, but his displeasure hurt more than any whipping. Saliman was one of the few human beings he wholeheartedly respected, and there was an unsettling power in Saliman’s dark gaze, which seemed to see without prejudice or fear through any dissembling.

“Well?” Saliman’s voice was gentle, but within it was a strength like steel.

“I
am
sorry,” said Hem, a little more clearly. “I don’t mean to cause trouble.”

Saliman sighed again, and sat back down on the bed, patting the cushions beside him. “Sit down, Hem. Tell me, are you very unhappy?”

Hem blinked at the unexpectedness of the question. He had not spoken to Saliman about his feelings. He opened his mouth to answer, and then shut it again.

“Urbika tells me you are not making friends,” said Saliman. “And she says you are struggling with the Suderain language, which can’t help.”

Despite himself, Hem blushed. He didn’t like the thought that people were observing him like that. He struggled with himself. He had longed for the chance to pour out his heart to Saliman, to tell him all his troubles. Saliman would understand his constant nightmares, his fears, the difficulties he had talking to people, how he hated the other minor Bards. He knew that Saliman would not judge him. But now that the chance had come, it was as if his jaws were sewn together with wire.

“I miss Maerad,” he said at last.

“That, alas, is a wound I cannot heal,” said Saliman gently. “Although I can perhaps help with other things.”

There was another long silence.

“Well,” said Saliman, when it was clear that Hem would not volunteer anything further. “Perhaps we should look at this bird of yours.”

Hem brightened up at the change of subject, and opened the chest. The bird cowered in the corner, staring at them unblinkingly. Saliman picked it up carefully, whispering to it in the Speech, and it relaxed into his hand.

“Do you think it will be all right?” asked Hem, watching Saliman anxiously.

“I think it has sustained no great hurt,” said Saliman. He examined the bird closely, murmuring in the Speech. As he did, he began to glow faintly with a strange inner light. Hem, who had now seen a few Bards using their Gift, knew he was making a healing charm, and relaxed. He felt a strange affinity with this tattered, abused bird, and he was relieved that it was getting the proper treatment. He could do healing, but he wasn’t confident about his ability.

After a short time Saliman finished, and he coaxed the bird onto Hem’s wrist, where it perched, perfectly tame, as if it were a falcon. Its feet felt cold against his skin, and its claws dug in with a surprising strength. Hem chirped at it, and then said, in the Speech,
Are you all right, little one?

Better,
said the bird.
Hungry!
And it made an interrogative noise very close to the wheezing gasp of a baby bird asking for food.

“It’s scarce more than a nestling,” Saliman said, smiling. “But what is it?”

“I thought you might know,” said Hem eagerly. “It looks like a kind of crow . . .”

“Yes, but it’s white.” Saliman regarded it with his head cocked to one side. “How did you find it?”

“Well, I was sitting in the mango tree when . . .” Hem stopped.

Saliman glanced at him ironically. “I had assumed that you were raiding Alimbar’s fruit trees,” he said. “Very expensive fruit it is, too. And then?”

Hem blushed for his slip, and told the full story of how he had found the bird. Saliman listened attentively, and then stroked the bird’s head. “An outcast, eh?” he said. “Perhaps it will not want to go back to its kin, where it will be persecuted. I think it is a crow that was so poorly used because it is unlike the others. Crows will do that. You may have found a companion, Hem.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you to decide whether you want to look after a crow. I have many things to do, and I am now grievously late.”

He walked to the door, and turned around. “I haven’t forgotten your trespass,” he said. “We’ll say no more for today. But I will do some thinking, and I judge that you ought to, as well.” Then he left.

Hem nodded absentmindedly; his attention was all turned to the bird. It now looked very perky, but it was, he thought, rather scruffy. It would look better when all its adult feathers had grown and it didn’t have grayish fluff poking through them, which gave it a kind of ragamuffin look.

So,
he said.
Do you want to stay with me? I can look after you.

Feed me?
said the bird.

Yes, I’ll feed you. And keep those others away. You’ll be safer.

The bird ruffled its feathers, stuck out its tail, and soiled the floor.

But you’ll have to do that outside,
Hem added, thinking with dismay of Saliman’s rather stern housemaster.
Because people will get cross with me.

The bird turned its head, fixing Hem with one of its eyes.

I stay,
it said.

So what is your name?
asked Hem.

Name?

What do they call you?

I was not given a name,
said the crow.
The flock would not name me, when my wing feathers came, because I am wrong-colored. I have no name.

You have to have a name,
said Hem. He thought for a moment, and remembered the word for
bird
that had been used by the Pilanel people he had briefly known.
How about “Irc”?

Irc?
The bird bobbed up and down comically on his wrist.
Irc! I have a name! Irc!
It soiled the floor again.

I told you,
said Hem.
You’ll have to do that outside.

Feed me? Hungry!

All right, Irc,
Hem said, sighing, but only with pretended impatience.
I’ll feed you
.

A
LISON
C
ROGGON
is an award-winning Australian poet, playwright, editor, and critic. She started to write the books of Pellinor when her oldest son, Joshua, began to read fantasy. “I had forgotten how much I loved this stuff when I was a kid,” she says. “My first real ambition as a child was to write a fantasy novel, and Josh’s reading reminded me. So one day I sat down and started to write. I had no idea what would happen, but one character appeared, and then another, and before long I had to finish the story to see how it turned out.”

That story turned out to be the first book in this series:
The Naming.
She says she has been surprised by how the books have seemed to unfold, already formed, before her. “Perhaps they’ve been waiting to be written for thirty years.”