The Sending Read online

  I sat down on the bench seat before the fire and watched food being transferred from the tray to a small table beside me. I had not felt particularly hungry but my stomach rumbled at the sight of boiled eggs and fresh bread, a crock of butter and a little pot of blackberry jam. Aras gave me a shy smile and went to collect the tray from the previous night. She began to speak of the Misfit children who had arrived a sevenday past from Oldhaven to prepare for the Choosing Ceremony that would also take place at the moon fair. Several had demonstrated strong dual Talents and she was wondering if those who had Farseeking abilities would choose our guild.

  I squeezed some lemon into the mug of steaming honey water on the tray and drank a sip of the sweetened liquid, only half listening to her chatter, so it took a moment for me to notice when she had changed the subject and begun talking about gypsies camped in the White Valley.

  ‘Twentyfamilies gypsies?’ I asked sharply, thinking of Swallow.

  ‘One older purebred woman and one younger halfbreed woman with different-coloured eyes,’ she answered. ‘Ceirwan says the younger might be the gypsy you rescued from the Herder flames ages back because she had eyes like that.’

  Iriny, I thought, certain he was right, for I had never met another person with such eyes. It was my rescue of Iriny that had led to my first meeting with Swallow, who was her halfbrother. I had not seen the gypsy woman since our unexpected meeting atop Stonehill on the west coast, when she had told me that Swallow had revealed to her that I was the Seeker referred to in the ancient promises. She had explained gravely that he had told her about me because the time of the fulfilment of the promises was near.

  Hearing this, there had been no doubt in my mind that Swallow had permitted his halfsister to cross the Suggredoon because he had known I would need her help. Either the gypsy seers had foreseen it, or Swallow had learned of it from the Agyllians, who had contacted him on other occasions when I had needed help. He would have come himself, Iriny had told me, save that his councillors had forbidden it, saying he could not risk himself until he had fathered an heir. I did not know what command Swallow had given his sister, but after telling me she knew I was the Seeker, Iriny had vowed to serve me in whatever capacity I required. True to her word, she had helped me to find the clue left by Cassy on Stonehill, and she had risked her life to help me get the plague-stricken coercer Domick out of Halfmoon Bay before his sickness became contagious.

  ‘I might ride down to the White Valley to see what news these gypsies have,’ I said, as much to myself as to Aras.

  ‘Today?’ she said, glancing askance at the window where rain still fell in a constant grey curtain. I followed her gaze, noticing that day had dawned without my realising it.

  ‘Maybe not today,’ I murmured, and broke off because I felt Ceirwan farseeking me.

  ‘Elspeth, three riders have just come galloping through the front gate. We had no warning from the watchhut because of the rain. I am headed for the front entrance now.’

  I stood up at once, sending that I would meet him in the entrance hall, my spirit leaping like a mountain salmon at the thought that Rushton might be one of the riders.

  I was halfway to the front entrance when Ceirwan farsought me to say that the riders were Sadorians, and that he would bring them to the kitchens to warm up and eat. I went directly there and had just settled myself in one of the dining alcoves, when the guilden ushered in a wet and weary-looking Bruna.

  ‘It is good to see you, Bruna!’ I said warmly, getting to my feet to welcome the young tribeswoman, as Ceirwan explained silently that the other two Sadorians had chosen to accompany the horses they had ridden to the farms.

  Bruna took my hands in hers, a smile lighting her face, and I had a sudden vivid recollection of the passionate exchange I had witnessed in Sador between her and the young high chieftain, Dardelan, when I had been idly tracking her with spirit-eyes. Then she mastered her expression and stepped back to flatten her right hand over her heart and bowed over it in the Sadorian fashion.

  ‘Guildmistress,’ she said, and the beads in her jet-black braids tinkled softly as she straightened and added formally, ‘you are in good health?’

  I nodded. ‘You look wet.’

  ‘Some matters are too important to wait for more convenient weather,’ she answered gravely.

  ‘You have a message from Dardelan?’ I asked, puzzled, because although she was now bonded to the young high chieftain, it seemed unlikely that he would use her as a messenger.

  She shook her head, sending a little shower of droplets over me. ‘I have not come up from the lowlands. I have been in Sador these last two sevendays helping my mother prepare crews for the Umborine and the Ydori. I am just now on my way back to Sutrium. I and my companions came by the coast path.’ She stopped and glanced around at the other people eating firstmeal, then continued in a slightly stilted tone, ‘I bring you greetings and an apology from the teknoguilder Jak. He is having trouble with his taint-devouring insects, so he asked me to let you know that he and Seely will not attend the moon fair after all. I suggested they travel here for it and then return to Sador, but Jak refuses to leave the desert lands until he has done what he came to do.’

  ‘He is a teknoguilder,’ I said philosophically, and suggested she might like to dry out and change her clothes by the fire in the chamber I used to conduct business as mistress of Obernewtyn. I would lend her some of my own until her things could be dried. I knew we were like enough in size for her to wear my clothes, since I had once borrowed hers. She had a pack, but I doubted anything in it would be dry. I asked Ceirwan to have someone bring a towel as well as dry clothes from my bedchamber and led Bruna through a door into the outer corridor. Having a chamber apart from my own guildhall had helped me to separate my roles as guildmistress of the Farseekers and mistress of Obernewtyn, and on this occasion the room was conveniently close to the kitchens.

  The last part of the walk leading to the chamber was open to a courtyard garden all along one side, and it was usually a pleasant stroll even at night, but today the din of the falling rain on the shingles overhead was deafening and every time the wind gusted, rain blew into the walk. By the time we reached the chamber, my hair and cheeks were almost as wet as Bruna’s.

  Fortunately a young farseeker soon appeared with towels and dry clothes. Bruna towelled herself vigorously and changed while I dried my face and hair and then added wood to the modest blaze that had been lit to take the chill out of the air. By the time Aras arrived bearing a tray laden with a jug of steaming pea soup, bowls, spoons and fresh-baked soda bread, the fire was crackling warmly. As she served the tribeswoman soup, Aras explained diffidently that food had also been sent to the farms for the other Sadorians.

  ‘I will join them soon,’ Bruna said to me, after thanking her courteously. ‘My horse stumbled as we came along the narrowest part of that treacherous coast path and her knees were cut. It may be that she will need some treatment.’

  Aras gave her a quick startled look, but I knew that Bruna used the possessive term as one might say ‘my brother’ or ‘my sister’, implying a bond of kinship and loyalty rather than of ownership. Survival in the harsh desert lands required a co-operation between human and beast that had only deepened once the Sadorians learned the signal talk that allowed non-beastspeakers to communicate with beasts.

  I nodded to dismiss Aras, farseeking her to bid Alad have a healer look at the horses that had come in with the Sadorians, since the rain meant I could not farseek the Beastspeaking guildmaster directly. When I told her what I had done, Bruna nodded her approval. ‘I only hope that she has not lamed herself, for I want to be in Sutrium as soon as may be.’

  There was a flare of longing in her eyes that told me the passion I had witnessed between her and Dardelan had not waned and I felt a stab of envy that she could ride down to her love with all the haste her heart commanded, while I must wait for mine to come to me.

  Stifling a sigh, I asked what the tribesfolk had made of Daf
fyd’s theory that the notorious slaver Salamander was Sadorian.

  Bruna shrugged. ‘My mother thinks it is true. I suspect some who profess their scorn for the theory do so merely to annoy her. It is the same with Jak’s insects, which many claim the tribes were manipulated into accepting, especially since my mother proclaimed it a sign that women should abandon the practice of immersing themselves in tainted water in solidarity with the wounded earth. They say the difficulties Jak is experiencing are proof that his gift is not a true sign. And more than half the women still immerse themselves in the isis pools on full moon nights.’

  I shook my head. ‘I thought it would be forbidden after the overguardian accepted the gifting,’ I said.

  ‘So did my mother,’ Bruna admitted. ‘But though the overguardian did not deny that the gifting of the insects fulfilled the prophecy that when the earth began to heal the immersions would end, she did not forbid them. It is not the way of the tribes to forbid people doing what they desire to do, even when it is wrong, unless it harms other tribesfolk. They do not regard a foetus as a member of the tribe. Fortunately the immersions will end perforce when the isis pools are clean, but that will take years.’

  It did not surprise me to discover that Bruna shared Jakoby’s controversial opinions. When she had been conceived, her mother had refused to follow the tradition of immersion, and her bondmate had left her. But had she not rejected tradition, Bruna might also have been born deformed. Jakoby’s own mother had obeyed tradition while carrying her and her twin sister, and although Jakoby had been born without blemish, her sister had been born with a deformed face and throat. As was the way of the tribes, the blemished twin had been given to the Earthtemple to be cared for and later trained as a guardian, but when she was older she had run away.

  Bruna went on. ‘As to Salamander, some of the other tribe leaders claim he never raided Sador because he knew our intolerance of slavery, not because he feared that his Sadorian heritage would be discovered. They argue he feared our retaliation and that’s why he never attacked Sadorian ships, save those that broke his embargo by attempting to dock at Sutrium. A foolish argument given that Salamander’s modified Black Ship would easily have out-manoeuvred and out-fought any of our greatships.’

  ‘Yet still your people will take part in the expedition to the Red Land?’

  Bruna nodded. ‘The overguardian of the Earthtemple foresaw the invasion of the slavemasters, even as your Maryon did. She announced that the only hope our people had of avoiding enslavement was to take part in the expedition.’ Bruna stretched her long strong hands out to the fire and added, ‘My mother will command the Umborine.’

  I said nothing, my thoughts still on her previous remarks. It was my belief that Salamander was Gadfian, and that he had come from the same place as the slavemasters who occupied the Red Land. Gadfian slavers had once preyed regularly on our coast but they had died out because the settlements they had come from had been established on tainted land that had rendered them barren. It was only in recent times that I had learned the slavemasters who occupied the Red Land were Gadfian too, and that they had come from a larger and more distant Gadfian settlement built on untainted ground. These Gadfians had obviously thrived, since their leaders had been able to send out a fleet large enough to invade the Red Land.

  If I was right, and Salamander had come from this settlement, it would explain how he had been able to cross the notorious Clouded Sea that lay between us and the Red Land. As a Gadfian he would have had access to the same maps as the slavemasters. Where they had obtained their maps originally was anyone’s guess, but I thought it likely that they had simply stumbled upon the Red Land and had then made their maps. This would also explain how Salamander had been permitted to trade with the slavemasters occupying the Red Land. If I was right, he was one of them.

  Much of what we knew of the Red Land and the occupying Gadfian slavemasters had come from my foray into Dragon’s mind when I had been trying to wake her from her coma, and from dream-books kept by each guild. Anyone at Obernewtyn who had known the farseeker Matthew, transported to the Red Land years before as a slave, occasionally true-dreamed of him and of his life in the Red Land. In recent times there had been mention of other peoples in the dreams. Of particular interest were the powerful and mysterious White-faced Lords who we now knew were a race of people from some other distant land, whose appetite for slaves was believed to be the reason the slavemasters would eventually seek to invade the Land and enslave our people. One recent dream-book entry had suggested that their name arose from the fact that they actually wore white masks.

  Bruna set her empty bowl aside, and a thought struck me. ‘Did you ever learn anything about that book and brooch I found in Ariel’s residence on Norseland?’ I asked. I had given them to her just before my departure from Sador, to see if she could find out anything about them, because both had looked to be Sadorian.

  She shook her head apologetically. ‘I left soon after you went, with Dardelan, so I gave them to my mother. She said she would look into them, but she did not mention them this visit. Then again, she has been very busy. The book was Gadfian of course, for as you know Sadorians do not scribe in gadi. Most likely it was one of those cherished books carried away from old Gadfia in the Beforetime when our ancestors fled their land.’

  I nodded, aware that the Sadorians were descended from a group of women who had fled from Gadfia towards the end of the Beforetime. They had left behind the violent Lud of the Gadfians along with many of the practices of their former land, including scribing in gadi. They used the language only in chant songs, for it was considered that the language contained too much of the violence inherent in the culture they had abandoned to be set down.

  ‘Did you have a chance to look at the book?’ I asked.

  ‘Sadorians cannot read gadi,’ Bruna reminded me. ‘But if my mother can find out which family the book belongs to, they will be able to recite its meaning. The only thing that seems odd to me is that I have not heard of any family losing one of their ancestors’ books. Such things are precious and irreplaceable.’

  ‘What did you make of the brooch?’ I asked.

  Bruna shrugged again. ‘It was a sandcat and that is a common enough motif for jewellery in Sador. In my judgement it is definitely Sadorian, but the maker’s mark stamped on the back was too worn to read. I was going to show it around to see if anyone recognised the work, and I suggested my mother do so. But as I said, she did not mention the book or the brooch to me when I was there.’

  I nodded and hoped Jakoby would come to the moon fair. She had promised to try, but from what Bruna said, she might be too busy with preparations for the expedition. I might have to wait until the journey to the Red Land was under way to find out what she had learned, if anything.

  I had found the brooch and the book in a woman’s lavish bedchamber in Ariel’s residence on Norseland, and it was likely the woman to whom they belonged had been Salamander’s lover. Certainly I could not imagine Ariel loving anyone. Being reminded that no Sadorian could read gadi made me feel more certain than ever that the woman had been Gadfian rather than Sadorian, else she would have been unable to read it. If I were right, it added weight to my theory that Salamander was Gadfian, for would he not choose a woman of his own race? Who Salamander and the woman were mattered to me because they were connected to Ariel, and the more I knew about him, the better prepared I would be to face him. I knew that I must face Ariel again, for I was certain that he was the Destroyer, whose coming I had been warned of by the Agyllians because he had the potential to find Sentinel and use it. He had fled to the Red Land on Salamander’s Black Ship after the Norselanders threw off the yoke of the Herder Faction. I had no doubt that I would find him waiting there for the Seeker.

  I had not yet talked to Rushton about going with the expedition myself, and I was glumly aware that he might oppose my going, especially if he decided to take Dameon with him. He would want me at Obernewtyn in his stead and safely out of
danger. But when I told him about Dragon he would surely agree that I should not leave her to face her past alone. I also hoped he would take personal pleasure in knowing that we would make the long journey together.

  Bruna rose and stretched as lithely and unselfconsciously as a cat, then she strode across the room to look out the window. I went to stand beside her and for a time we simply stood companionably, watching the grey rain slanting down onto a sodden stretch of lawn. Then Bruna said, ‘I have grown to love the Land, Elspeth, but when the rain falls it sometimes seems that it will never stop. I suppose Landfolk find the dryness of the desert no more appealing.’

  ‘Louis Larkin predicts that the Days of Rain will come early this year and if the last few days are a sign, he is right,’ I said. ‘But as to the desert lands being unappealing, to my eyes they will always be wondrous fair.’

  Bruna gave me a quick, appreciative look. ‘Few Landfolk would call fair a land that is all but bereft of green and growing things.’

  ‘Yet it is so,’ I said firmly. I turned to look at her. ‘Tell me, Bruna, did you really come all the way up to Obernewtyn in this churlish weather to deliver a message from Jak?’

  The Sadorian woman looked at me. ‘I did not wish to speak my deepest purpose with so many people about.’

  ‘We are all Misfits here,’ I said gently.

  ‘Nevertheless, some things are better spoken of in private,’ she replied. ‘I came to tell you that the bones of the tribesman Straaka must be returned to the desert lands so that they can be laid to rest in the spice groves with the proper rituals.’

  This was the last thing I had expected. ‘Bruna, we have not seen Straaka since Malik’s betrayal in the White Valley. Miryum fled with his body after the battle and no one has seen her since.’

  Straaka had ardently pursued the stocky coercer after they had met fleetingly in Sador during the Battlegames. When the handsome tribesman had gifted her two horses upon our departure, Miryum accepted, thinking only of being able to give the beasts their freedom at Obernewtyn. She had been mortified when Straaka appeared months later to claim her as his bondmate. Only then had she understood that his gift had been an offer of betrothal. At my suggestion, she explained that she could not bond with him until Obernewtyn was safe. I knew that a tribesman would honour Miryum’s devotion to Obernewtyn, and hoped that he would return to his land to wait. Miryum had been unable to simply recant her unwitting acceptance of his offer, because tribal honour would have demanded that Straaka kill himself. I had supposed that eventually he would grow weary of waiting and withdraw his suit. The soft-spoken tribesman had agreed to wait but instead of returning to Sador he had chosen to wait at Obernewtyn. To Miryum’s disgust, Straaka had attached himself to her newly formed coercer-knights, riding out as one of them, determined to help her fulfil her vow to see Obernewtyn safe.