A Time of War

As he walked, he turned his head this way and that, to listen rather than look, because where eyes should have gleamed under his furred brows were only empty sockets, pale and knotted with scars.

‘Oh!’ Jahdo spoke without thinking, in his piping boy’s voice that cut through the noise of the crowd. ‘He be blind.’

With a toss of his maned head the Gel da’Thae stopped walking in front of Lael and swung toward the sound of Jahdo’s voice. He bared strong white teeth, with more than a hint of fang about the incisors.

‘Do you mock me, lad?’ Although he spoke in the language of the Rhiddaer, his voice growled out and rumbled, echoing back and forth like the waves of a storm slapping off a pier.

‘Never, never,’ Jahdo stammered. ‘I be truly sorry. I were just so surprised.’

‘No doubt. But you’re an ill-mannered little cub nonetheless.’

‘I am, sir, truly, and I’ll try to learn better.’

‘Ill-mannered and cowardly to boot.’ The Gel da’Thae paused, sniffing the air. ‘Huh. I sense a man carrying you. Are you the lad’s father?’

‘I am,’ Lael said, and his voice was steady and cold. ‘And I’ll speak for him. He be no coward, sir. He be shamed that he might have wounded your feelings.’

The Gel da’Thae grunted, tucked his staff under one arm, and reached out an enormous hand to pat the side of Lael’s face. He reached higher, found Jahdo’s arm and patted that, then took his hand away and smelt his own palm.

‘Huh, sure enough, I sense no fear on the lad, but by all the gods and demons, as well, the pair of you stink of ferrets!’

‘So we do, no doubt. You’ve got a keen nose.’

‘Hah! I may be blind, but a man would have to be dead to miss that scent.’ He seemed to be smiling, pulling thin lips back from his fangs. ‘Well, a good day to you both and your weasel friends as well.’

With a whistle to the huge horse, the Gel da’Thae walked off, tapping his way with the staff as he followed the jingling of the caravan along the curve of the lake, where a grassy stretch of shore was set aside for travelling merchants. Lael swung Jahdo down with a grunt.

‘You’d best mind your mouth after this, lad. You always did have a cursed big one.’

‘I know, Da, and I truly truly be sorry.’

‘No doubt. But the last thing we do want is to give insult to one of the Horsekin. That’s all they need, one word for a thin excuse, and they cry war. I hate to see one of them here for just that reason. If that bard goes taking offence, we’ll have his clan riding at the head of an army to siege us.’

‘How do you know he’s a bard?’

‘Because his eyes are gone. That’s what they do, when they decide one of their boy-children has the voice to make a bard. They do scoop his eyes right out with the point of a knife, because they do think it make his singing sweeter.’

Jahdo nearly gagged. He turned sharply away, found himself staring up at Councilman Verrarc, and felt the blood drain from his face in a wave of cold fear.

‘Somewhat wrong, lad?’ Verrarc’s voice was mild, but his stare was sharp and cold. ‘You look frightened.’

‘Oh, he had a bit of a run-in with that Gel da’Thae bard,’ Lael said, smiling. ‘He’s never seen one of their tribe before.’

‘Enough to scare anyone, that.’

‘What’s he doing here, anyway?’ Lael went on.

‘Cursed if I know.’ Verrarc shrugged, visibly worried. ‘That’s why the guards did fetch me and the rest of the council before they did let that lot in. We’re going to pay him a visit, just to ask, like, down at the campground.’

‘Think it be trouble?’

‘I wish I knew, Lael, I wish I knew. As he walked by, he did tell me that he’d come to claim a tribute we owe his kind. We’ve got a web of treaties and obligations with these people, much as I wish we didn’t, and so who knows what he means by it? I’d best be finding out.’

Verrarc turned away with a pleasant nod, but Jahdo felt his fear deepen to a clot like goat’s hair in his mouth. With a dream-like clarity he knew that showing his fear of the councilman was dangerous, that if Verrarc thought he remembered – remembered what? The terror in the meadow. The hiss of a snake.

‘Well, lad,’ Lael said. ‘You do look as white as I’ve ever seen you. What be so wrong?’

Jahdo was about to tell, then realized that the councilman lingered within earshot.

‘The bard’s eyes, Da, that’s all. I keep imagining how that knife would feel when they did it.’

‘A nasty thing, sure enough.’ Lael shuddered a bit himself. ‘But they’re a strange lot all round, and cruel enough as well. Come along now, let’s get home. We need to stop to claim a fee, too.’

‘I did it already, Da. Mam told me to. I got a lot of roast goat from the Widow Suka.’

‘Splendid. Let’s go fetch it home, then.’

The news had preceded them to Citadel. As they were tying up the coracle, a handful of militiamen surrounded them. With the swing of one broad hand and a toss of his blonde head, Demet pushed his way to the front. The family had known him all their lives, just as most everyone knew everyone else in Cerr Cawnen.

‘Be it true, Lael?’ Demet burst out. ‘Is one of the Horsekin in the city?’

‘He is, and we did see him. A bard, and blind as a mole. Councilman Verrarc says he’s come to claim some ancient due or service.’

All the men swore, laying automatic hands on sword hilt or knife. Demet looked away to the distant shore and shaded his eyes with one hand, as if he were hoping to see the stranger.

‘I don’t see why we had to go and make treaties with them, anyway,’ Jahdo said.

‘Better than being their slaves, lad,’ Lael said. ‘Or the slaves of the wild tribes up to the north. Better to bargain with the Horsekin we know than fight the ones we don’t, bain’t?’

‘True spoken.’ Demet turned back to them. ‘But I’ll wager we call council fire tonight over this.’

No one bothered to argue with him, and rightly so. Just at sunset the big bronze gong that hung at the top of Citadel began to clang and boom across the water. More ominous than thunder, each huge stroke hung in the darkening air. When Jahdo and his family left their quarters, he could see boats and coracles, skittering on their oars like so many waterbugs, as all round the shore the townsfolk swarmed across the lake. Every person who dwelt within earshot of the gong had the right to attend these councils and make their wishes known, man and woman alike, just as everyone had the right to vote for the Town Council, too. Out in the Rhiddaer there were no lords and kings. As the citizenry hurried up the steep streets of Citadel in a tide of rumour and fear, the family made its own way to the assembly ground.

In front of the stone council hall, which sported a colonnade and a flight of shallow steps, stretched a plaza, paved with bricks. Off to one side, the militia was heaping up wood for a bonfire to light the proceedings. Jahdo and Niffa scrambled to the top of the thick wall on the uphill side and watched the murmuring crowd grow larger and larger. Every now and then Jahdo would turn round and look back at the lake. Already in the cooler evening mists were rising over deep water. Since it was fed by hot springs, the lake ran warm. Just as the night grew thick, and the flames began to leap high from the fire, casting enormous shadows across the arches and pillars of the hall, the council barge tied up down at the jetty. From his perch Jahdo could see the torches bobbing along the twisted streets of Citadel and pick out the council members, too, as the procession panted its way up the steep hillside. Striding among them was the Gel da’Thae bard.

‘I be scared,’ Niffa said abruptly. ‘I don’t know why. I just feel so cold and strange, like.’

‘Oh, he’s not so bad, really. The bard, I mean. And this won’t have anything to do with us.’

‘Don’t go being so sure, little brother. I never feel like this for no reason at all.’ Her voice stuck in her throat, and she paused, gulping for air. ‘Let’s get off this wall. Let’s go find Mam and Da.’

‘I don’t want to. I can’t see anything down in the crowd.’

‘Jahdo, come on! You can’t stay here.’

He hesitated, considering, but taking orders from his sister rankled.

‘Won’t. You go down if you want to.’

‘You dolt! Come with me!’

He shook his head in a stubborn no and refused to say a thing more. After a moment she slid down and plunged into the crowd like a swimmer into waves. He could just make her out, heading from clot to murmuring clot of townsfolk, until at last she fetched up next to Demet, standing guard near the fire itself. So that’s it! Jahdo thought. She just wanted to find him, not Mam and Da at all.

Brass horns blared at the gates to the plaza. The crowd shrank back into itself, opening a narrow passage through for the councilmen, with Verrarc in the lead and Admi, the Chief Speaker, bringing up the rear. In the middle strode the Gel da’Thae, surrounded by councilmen, all murmuring to him at once, whether or not he could hear over the crowd and the horns. As they reached the steps, a squad of militiamen escorted them to the big stone rostrum near the fire. After some confused milling round, the clot opened again to let Admi climb the rostrum. A tall man with narrow shoulders but a big belly, he was going bald rather badly, so that he seemed made from perched spheres. In the firelight his head gleamed with sweat, and his tiny eyes peered out at the crowd through slits in heavy flesh. Yet when he spoke, his dark voice rang like gold.

‘Fellow citizens! We do have among us a guest, the honoured bard Meer of the Gel da’Thae.’

Dutifully everyone clapped their hands, a patter of sound, dying fast.

‘He does come on grave purpose and with serious intent. Trouble brews in the far west. The wild tribes of the northern Horsekin are on the move.’

It seemed that everyone in the plaza caught their breath hard. Even over the crackle of the bonfire their dismay hammered on the surrounding walls. Admi wiped his forehead with both hands, unconsciously pushing back hair he no longer had.

‘May the gods allow that this trouble stay among them!’ Admi went on. ‘Yet who knows what the gods intend? The western Horsekin, our allies for all these long years, are fortifying their cities. From what Meer does tell me, it behooves us to look to our own. We go on full guard and military alert.’

Murmurs, nods – the crowd moved within itself, then fell silent. Jahdo inched closer along the wall. He could just see Meer, turning his head slowly back and forth, as if listening to the temper of the gathering.

‘Since Meer did travel long and hard to reach us, he will claim a reward,’ Admi continued. ‘He would journey farther on, where none of our merchants do go, and he does need a servant and guide. Sightless as he is, he requires a lad to wait upon him in his roamings, now that he can no longer travel with a caravan.’

Too late Jahdo remembered his sister’s premonitions. He clung to the wall, paralysed like a rat cornered by a ferret, as Councilman Verrarc walked to the edge of the steps and looked his way. The traitor fire flared up and sent long lines of light to bind him to Verrarc’s cold blue stare. In the crowd several men called out a question.

‘He’s heading east.’ In the stress of the moment Admi dropped his rhetoric. ‘He says he does have business at the border. The one we share with the Slavers.’

Jahdo turned so weak and cold that he nearly fell. He grabbed the rough stones to steady himself and swung down to hide in the muttering swarm of townsfolk. Too late – Verrarc was speaking to the militiamen, summoning a pair, plunging into the crowd and heading straight for him. Jahdo tried to run, but caught in the forest of grown-ups he found no path. Verrarc laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and swung him round. The councilman was smiling.

‘Meer did remember you, lad. Bring me the boy who smells of ferrets, he said. That one owns a brave heart.’

Jahdo stared into his eyes and felt again that he was spinning in a mind-eddy, down and down, drowning in the lake of Verrarc’s eyes. From what seemed like far away he heard a woman screaming in rage. The screams grew louder, rushed close, turned into his mother’s voice. The spell broke. His mother’s face hovered above him.

‘You mayn’t, you mayn’t! How can you even think of it?’

‘It be the treaty bond, Dera!’ Verrarc shoved himself back, raising one hand ready to ward blows. ‘It’s needful that someone go. Do you want a whole pack of Horsekin sieging us for breaking the treaty?’

‘He be but ten summers! Send some other lad. Send one of the militia.’

‘Meer didn’t ask for some other lad.’

With an animal snarl Dera turned away and began shoving her way toward the steps. In his mother’s strong grip Jahdo found himself dragged after as the guards and Verrarc followed, with Verrarc arguing with Dera the entire way. Jahdo could just sense the crowd thinning, swaying, as most of the citizens headed for the gate. He was willing to bet that the family of every other boy there was running for safety. In the flaring torchlight by the colonnade Meer stood waiting, his arms crossed over his chest.

‘Listen, you!’ Dera growled. ‘I do care not if you be one of the gods themselves. You’re not taking my son away.’

‘Dera, please, hold your tongue!’ Verrarc looked terrified. ‘You’ll insult our guest.’

With Niffa, Demet, and Kiel right behind him, Lael pushed through the crowd. Dera ignored him and the councilman both and waggled one finger under Meer’s flat nose.

‘Just who do you think you are, anyway,’ she went on. ‘Marching in here and –’

‘My good woman, please!’ Meer held one huge hand up flat for silence. ‘I come to you as a suppliant, as one in need. Please, I beg you, allow your son to come with me. I promise you I’ll treat him not as a slave, but every bit as well and tenderly as I would treat my very own first-born nephew.’

Dera hesitated. Verrarc muttered astonishments.

‘A mother’s words are law, Councilman,’ Meer snapped. ‘My good woman, as I travelled this day through your city, everywhere I smelt fear, except on your son. He’s like one of your weasels, very small, but with the heart of a wolf. I cannot travel alone.’ He reached up to touch the rim of an empty eye-socket. ‘My own mother wept when they blinded me, but in the end my calling pleased her well. For all I know, some great destiny lies in wait for your lad. Would you stand in his way?’

‘Well now.’ Dera let out her breath in a puff. ‘Well now. If you were going anywhere but east –’

‘Truly, the name of the Slavers is not one to speak in jest. Among my own people we call them Lijik Ganda, the Red Reivers. An aeon ago they swept down upon us, and the slaughter drove us from our homeland and into sin and degradation. Woe, woe to the people of the horse that our desperation drove us to such sins! Do you think we’ve forgotten such terrible things? I will not lie to you. I take your son into danger, but I would take my own nephew, had I a nephew, into the same.’

‘This thing be as important as that?’ Lael broke in.

Meer turned slightly in the direction of Councilman Verrarc, just a brief involuntary gesture. Fortunately Verrarc was whispering to one of the militiamen and, at least, seemed to notice nothing.

‘It is to me. To no one else, mayhap. My mother laid a geas upon me concerning my brother, and I have reason to believe he’s gone east.’

To Jahdo the bard’s voice sounded entirely too smooth, too glib, making him wonder if Meer were lying, but he supposed that he might have felt that way because he too had something to hide from the councilman. As he thought of Verrarc, he felt words bursting from his mouth.

‘Mam, I want to go.’

The moment he spoke he was horrified, but there was no taking the words back. Dera threw her hands into the air and keened aloud, just one brief sob of sound, quickly stifled. Lael turned to him, his mouth working.

‘If we do owe this thing under treaty,’ Lael said at last. ‘And if you want to go, well, then, there be naught much your mother and I can say about it. But be you sure, lad? At your age and all, how can you know your own mind?’

Jahdo felt his entire body trembling, trying to squeeze out the words his traitor mouth refused to speak: no, no, I didn’t mean it, I don’t want to go, I don’t. His heart pounded the words like a drum, but he could not speak.

‘He smells great things on the move, my good man,’ Meer said. ‘Even a child may sense destiny.’

‘Destiny?’ Dera spat out the word. ‘Hogwash and turnip wine!’

‘My good woman, please. With luck we’ll never even cross the Slavers’ border.’

‘Hah! That sort of luck does have a way of running short. I’m not letting my lad –’

All at once Dera stopped speaking. Meer caught himself as he was about to speak, as well, and turned, moving his huge head from side to side as if he were straining to hear some small sound. Jahdo realized that he himself was – that they all were – turning to Niffa, staring at Niffa, even though she’d said not a word. Her face had gone dead-pale, and in the broken torchlight her eyes seemed huge pools of shadow, as empty as those of the bard himself. Demet grabbed her arm to steady her.

‘Let him go, Mam.’ Her voice was a hollow whisper. ‘He’ll be safer there than here.’

Involuntarily Jahdo glanced at Verrarc, standing just behind her, and saw the strangest smile on the councilman’s face. It reminded him of a playmate caught cheating in a game. Dera considered for a long moment, taking her daughter’s strange pronouncement seriously, as indeed she always did whenever Niffa came out with one. For a moment she seemed about to speak; then she burst into tears and rushed off, dodging her way through the remnant of crowd. Swearing under his breath, Kiel followed her.

‘Well, then, that’s settled.’ Rubbing his hands together, Verrarc stepped forward. ‘Lael, since your son’s fulfilling an obligation for the entire town, the council will of course provide him with a pony and such supplies as he’ll be needing for this journey. Meer, the Chief Speaker and I did think that we could spare you some armed guards, as well, a squad of militia, say, and some pack horses.’

‘You can’t spare them, councilman,’ Meer said. ‘That’s the point of my journey here, wasn’t it now? Besides, the child and I will be safer on our own. I know a trick or two about smelling my way to safety when I have to. If need be, the lad and I can always hide in wild places, but hiding a whole pack of armed men in the forest is beyond me.’

‘Hiding?’ Lael stepped forward. ‘From what? Now wait just a moment, good bard. I had no idea –’

‘Da!’ Niffa snapped. ‘It’s needful that you let him go.’

‘Come now, my good sir,’ Meer said. ‘The lore teaches that one of the fifty-two fixed things is this: when women lay down the law, men must do as we’re told.’

Lael turned to him, utterly baffled by this statement, a gesture, of course, lost on the bard.

‘He does agree,’ Niffa broke in. ‘Jahdo, come home now. We’ve got to get your gear ready.’

Lael started to protest, then merely threw his hands in the air to reproach the gods and followed the two children as they hurried across the by-then empty plaza. When Jahdo looked back, he saw Demet running after as well. Standing where they’d left them, Verrarc and the Gel da’Thae conferred, heads together, while the rest of the Town Council hovered anxiously nearby.

The family spent a miserable evening round the central hearth, where two candle lanterns stood, sending long shadows flickering on the walls. No one wanted a fire on such a muggy night. For a long time Dera and Lael paced back and forth, squabbling and cursing each other and the Town Council both while the family merely listened. Niffa and Demet sat on a wooden bench; Kiel leaned in the doorway and glowered; Jahdo scrunched into a corner with a ferret cradled in the crook of his arm for comfort. All at once he realized that his father was speaking to him.

‘Why? Why did you say you wanted to go?’

Jahdo opened his mouth to answer only to find that he had no words. Although he tried his best to remember what had made him speak, the entire episode by the council fire had blurred in his mind into something much like a half-remembered dream.

‘The adventure of the thing, maybe?’ Lael said, softening his voice. ‘Lad, lad, you can tell me.’ He crouched down to Jahdo’s level. ‘What be wrong? Second thoughts?’

Jahdo nodded. Lael let out his breath in a puff.

‘Too late now, lad, to get out of it. You should have thought of this then. Ye gods, it’s not like we can spare you here. There be a passle of work, this time of year.’

‘Lael?’ Demet broke in. ‘If my sergeant does release me, I’ll come take Jahdo’s place.’

Niffa gave him a brilliant smile that made him blush. Lael pretended not to notice.

‘Now that be decent of you, lad,’ he said. ‘I’ll speak to him myself. It’s been many a long year since I served my turn in the militia, and I wouldn’t mind having someone good with a sword round the place.’

‘Why, Da?’ Jahdo found his tongue at last.

‘Don’t know.’ Lael hesitated, suddenly uneasy. ‘It’s just that somewhat be wrong. I can feel it, like.’

‘Everything be wrong.’ Dera began to weep. ‘Jahdo, Jahdo! Naught will ever be right again.’

Jahdo clutched Ambo so tight that the ferret whipped his head round and nipped his wrist, then slithered free and dashed for the other room. Jahdo stood up.

‘Mam, don’t be crying! Please! It’s needful that I do this.’ He felt as if he were struggling to open a locked door, shoving and pushing and banging against some huge expanse of solid oak, but he simply could not voice the truth, that he’d never wanted to agree.

‘You could at least tell your mother why,’ Lael snapped.

The entire family was staring at him, waiting for him to speak.

‘I can’t. I don’t know why. I can’t say it.’

Lael sighed and threw his hands into the air.

‘To think that a son of mine!’ he snapped. ‘Ye gods!’

‘Da!’ Niffa came to Jahdo’s rescue. ‘Leave it be. There’s no help for it now, anyway, no matter what the reason.’

Dera wiped her eyes on a bit of rag and nodded agreement.

‘And I’ll say one thing for that Gel da’Thae bard,’ she snarled. ‘He’s got some respect for a mother’s heart, not like our Verro. Here I’ve known him since he was a tiny lad, a pitiful little thing with that rotten father of his, and me the only woman in this town who’d stand up to old Renno, at that, and tell him to keep his belt off his lad’s back. To think he’d treat one of mine this way now that he’s made his way in the world!’

Jahdo tried to speak so hard that he began to tremble, but words would not come. Dimly he remembered that Verrarc had somehow or other spared his life, but he could not tell his mother, could not find one word.

‘Now here, the lad be exhausted,’ Demet said. ‘Lael, a dropped plate’s past mending, isn’t it? Might as well let Jahdo get his sleep. He’ll need it.’

Jahdo decided that as prospective brothers-in-law went, Demet had a lot to recommend him. Before his parents could start in on him again, he retreated to the bedchamber.

Although Jahdo was sure that he’d never fall asleep, suddenly it was dawn. Wrapped in their blankets, Kiel and Niffa were sleeping nearby; the ferrets lay tumbled in pairs and threes in their straw. Jahdo got up, considered waking everyone, then decided that he could never bear to say goodbye. The night before, he’d gathered into a sack his few pieces of extra clothing, along with his winter cloak and the bone-handled knife his grandfather had given him, and put the lot by the front door. He dressed, pulled on his heaviest pair of boots, and slipped out of the chamber, tiptoeing past his parents’ bed. At the door he stopped, looking out into the grey light brightening on the passageway outside. If he turned round for a last look at home, he would cry. He grabbed his sack and hurried out.

He slithered down the passageway, climbed down the ladder, bolted into the wider street, and nearly collided with Councilman Verrarc. In the rising light Verrarc looked ill – that was the only word Jahdo had for it, anyway. His skin was dead-pale, and his eyes seemed huge, sunk in the puffy shadow of dark circles. Behind him stood two guards, armed, wearing chain mail shirts under the loose red tabards that marked them as servants of the Council of Five. Even though his family knew their families, Jahdo saw them as jailors.

‘There he is,’ Verrarc sang out, and he was making some attempt at a smile. ‘Jahdo, the council does send its official thanks. Do you realize what that means? By taking up this burden of the treaty bond, you do work for everybody – the town, the council, your family – everybody. Why, lad, you be a hero!’

The two guards nodded their solemn agreement. Jahdo merely shrugged. He knew that if he tried to say one word, tears would pour and shame him. And yet, when they reached the main jetty and discovered the entire council assembled to hail the rat boy, Jahdo found himself caught by the moment. Admi himself stepped forward to take his hand and lead him onto the barge, where the town banners snapped and rustled as the mists blew away. The councilmen bowed, the oarsmen saluted, the militia all watched him with awe. Jahdo’s heart began to pound from the honour of it. Maybe he was a hero, after all. Maybe he really did believe them. Maybe he really did want to go.

At the main gates out Meer stood waiting beside his huge white horse. With his staff in one hand he turned his sightless eyes their way and boomed out a greeting as the procession made its way up. The honours evaporated like summer mist from the lake.

‘Well, Jahdo lad, are you ready for our journey?’

‘Not truly.’ The words leapt from his mouth. ‘Meer, I be scared.’

The councilmen winced and looked this way and that, but the Gel da’Thae laughed.

‘Good. So am I. We’ve every right to be. Neither of us are warriors, are we?’

‘So we’re not,’ Jahdo said. ‘I wish we were.’

Meer laughed again and swung his head round.

‘Councilman Verrarc? Where are you?’

‘Here, good sir.’ Verrarc stepped forward. ‘My men tell me you don’t want the lad to have a pony.’

‘Just so. The pack mule and supplies will do us, and very generous you townsmen are, I must say. Jahdo and I will walk, because warriors we are not, only a blind man and a lad, and much more fitting it will be for us to stay on our two feet. And safer, as well. All during my long journey from the trading stations of the east, I’ve been studying to be humble, and Jahdo my friend, I recommend the same to you. When a man runs the risk of meeting his ancestral enemies, humility becomes him.’

No one seemed to be able to think of fine words to answer those.

‘Let us address the gods,’ Meer went on, ‘and beg them for a safe journey as we go about our business. All our doings lie in the hands of the gods, after all.’ He flung himself to his knees, bowed his head, and stretched out his arms like a suppliant. ‘O you gods who dwell beyond the sky, all-powerful and all-seeing, and especially the gods of roads, O you, Tanbala of the North, O you, Rinbala of the South, Thunderers and Shakers, hear our prayer!’

Meer prayed for a long while, both in his language and that of the Rhiddaer, while the men looked this way and that and Jahdo watched fascinated. The folk of the Rhiddaer prayed, when they prayed at all, standing on their feet and facing the home of whatever god they were invoking, whether it was a tree or a hot spring or a fire mountain. He’d never seen anyone grovel in front of the gods before, and the sight embarrassed him. At last, however, Meer finished and rose, dusting off the knees of his leather trousers as if he’d done something perfectly ordinary. The men standing round all sighed in relief.

Verrarc handed Jahdo the lead rope of a fine brown mule, laden with canvas panniers.

‘Farewell, lad, and may we meet again soon.’

Jahdo had never heard anything less sincere in his life.

As the gates swung open, he took the lead, urging the mule along with little clucking noises such as he’d make to encourage a ferret. One of the guards handed him a switch.

‘Beat the mule as much as it needs,’ he remarked. ‘Stubborn ugly things.’

‘Here!’ Meer bellowed. ‘What did he give you? A stick or suchlike? Throw it away, lad. I’ll teach you how to handle a mule, and beatings have no part in it.’

Secure in Meer’s blindness the guard grinned and rolled his eyes, but Jahdo tossed the switch away.

All that morning they followed a hard-packed dirt road east through reasonably familiar country. Although Jahdo had never been more than a mile or two away from Cerr Cawnen, the farmers round about were still his people. Their wooden longhouses, all painted white and roofed with split planks, stood in the midst of fields of volcanic earth so rich some thought it magical. Often, as they walked past a fenced field or a pasture, a well-dressed man or a couple of plump children would leave their ploughing or cattle to run to the side of the road and stare at them. For the first few miles, Meer strode along in silence, swinging his stick back and forth on the road with one massive hand as he led his horse with the other. Wrapped in his instant homesickness, Jahdo was glad to be left alone at first, but the farther they went, the harder it became to keep back his tears.

Since he’d never eaten that morning, as the sun rose high in the sky his stomach began to growl. He could imagine his family coming back home for their noon meal, gathering at the long table and watching while Mam dipped soup from the kettle and cut bread into chunks. He caught his breath with a sob.