Heritage of Fire Read online

  "No," said Alissa. "I've only seen one of them myself. A Sarcen seaman had one. His was made of laminated wood, but it shot a bolt twice the distance any island bow could."

  Gerd almost shrugged. That was no great feat. The islanders were not archers. Their bows were useful only for hunting rabbits, and could carry an arrow not much further than a flung stone. Maybe it was because there was no suitable wood. Pine and fir, yes, even some oak, but apparently these did not make good bows.

  "Come on. Let's try it out." Gerd had to smile. Alissa sounded like a child with a new toy. She picked up a case as well as the bow. Gerd bowed ceremonially, and followed her out.

  They walked through the gate, down the road a way, and then descended to the pebble beach. There was no archery range, but there was a tidal shelf, a sharp vertical step down to the beach. It was where the highest storm-waves broke, and it was as tall as Gerd. The sea was calm today, and the tide was out. The water's edge was thirty paces or more from it now.

  Alissa picked up a piece of driftwood and set it against the little cliff. They went to the edge of the water, and she opened the case to produce a strange arrangement of cords with hooks and pulley-wheels. The hooks she attached to the bowstring, and a crank turned the pulley-wheels. Slowly the string was hauled back as she wound the crank.

  "Bit of a palaver, isn't it?" asked Gerd. He thought a bow was something you pulled and then released.

  "Well, I suppose." Alissa kept on winding. It took some effort. The string was pulled over a double-pronged catch, which clicked up into place, holding it back. She stopped, unwound, and released the loosened hooks. The string stayed in place. "But nobody could pull this by arm alone. And once you have it spanned, you can leave it that way for as long as you like, and it's ready to shoot straight away."

  She put the pulley away in the case and brought out a very short, thick arrow with a small, narrow head. Holding the bow flat, its span parallel to the ground, she placed the arrow on a groove cut in the stock, the arrow's notch between the prongs of the catch, engaging the string.

  "Well, here goes." She levelled the bow at the piece of driftwood. Gerd saw that there was a lever under the stock that pulled the catch down. Alissa sighted along the stock - Gerd could see that this would be easier to aim than a normal bow - and squeezed the lever.

  There was a sound unlike any bow Gerd had ever heard. Bows twanged. He'd heard that sound before, but not the deep, musical thrum this one made. And he'd heard that arrows whistled, too, sometimes, but he'd never heard a short, thin, deadly scream like this. It was immediately followed by a sharp crack.

  But he didn't see a thing. One moment the shaft was on the stock, the next moment it had disappeared, and the bow had released, twitching in Alissa's hands. Perhaps there was the vague perception of a streak in the air, but no more. He whirled, startled, trying to see where the shaft had gone.

  The crack had been the piece of driftwood splintering as the arrow sliced through it. Shards flew. They were still high in the air as Gerd whipped around, and the wood had burst into slivers. Of the arrow there was no sign at all.

  He stared, and then turned back to see Alissa staring at him. As one, they looked back at the target. Alissa lowered the bow. She moistened her lips, saying nothing. Then she walked slowly up the beach to the splintered piece of wood.

  Behind the wood, in the firm stony soil of the bank, there was a horizontal hole, as if someone had poked a finger into it. Alissa looked at it, then back at Gerd. He kept his features carefully neutral, but reached out a gloved hand and began scraping sand away.

  They found the fletched end of the arrow a full handspan deep in the sand. The head had penetrated more than a foot. It took some time to get it out.

  Gerd finally pulled it, toothlike, and contemplated its point. It was bent over with the force of its strike. He looked at Alissa. She said nothing. Gerd cleared his throat, with difficulty. "Corporal Sankey likes walls," he remarked. "I really think he has a point. I only hope that if anyone ever aims one of those things at me, I will be on the other side of a wall. A nice thick one. Made of stone. Stone would be good."

  They stood in silence for a moment. Alissa took the shaft and ran a thumb over the bent point. "I'll have to make the heads flanged," she muttered. "Four-edged."

  "Uh-huh. But before you get into the details, can we try something else?"

  She looked up. "What?"

  "Well, seeing as that one's pretty well ruined now..." Gerd turned. The sea was calm and flat, no white showing past the line of little waves close to the beach. No boats were in sight. "Load it up again, and let's see how far it shoots."

  Alissa hesitated, then nodded. They tried it.

  Shot flat, the shaft carried a full two hundred paces. At least that much. Gerd didn't like to think what its full range would be if it were angled a little upwards.

  After that, there didn't seem to be much to say. They carried it back to the castle, looking thoughtful. Alissa packed it away under her bench. They walked back into town, not saying anything at all.

  *

  "Did your Dad ever speak of the Charter, or of a meeting of the Company?"

  Inside the inn, it was crowded. Pay parade had been that afternoon, and most of the Company had money to spend. Gerd brought a pair of tankards to the bench outside, where the dusk was lingering. There was still light in the sky, though the waters of the harbour were dark, and the mountaintop still glowed in the level light.

  It seemed to be understood that the bow should not be discussed here, where others might hear. Fortunately, another subject was available.

  Alissa took a reflective swallow and sat back, leaning her shoulders on the wall. She considered. "A meeting? No. He often talked about the Company Charter, though. Used to grumble that nobody bothered with it any more." She glanced at Gerd. "But that was years ago, and he was speaking of a time even further back. I don't think there is a Charter any more."

  "There is, though." Gerd nursed his tankard on his chest, looking out over the twilit water of the harbour. "I swore to uphold it and abide by it, the day I joined. It must still be in force." He paused, wondering how to go on. "Only I never saw it," he said, at last, "and nobody in the company seems to have seen it, either. Well, not a whole copy, anyway."

  Alissa turned her head and regarded him. "Now, why do I think that you're not saying all you know?"

  Gerd smiled a little, and continued to watch the sea-mews flying home against the softly-glowing sky. "Because I'm not, I suppose. I have this."

  He pulled the folded sheets out of his pouch and handed them over. Alissa turned to let the wash of light fall on them, and scanned slowly through them. "Meeting of the Brothers. Grievances. Election of officers. Confirmation of under-officers. Duties of the captain. Accounts to be rendered to the meeting." She turned over a sheet. "Captain's report. Acceptance of report … And so on and so on." She put the sheets down and stared at Gerd, who was still considering the darkening harbour and the flight of the birds and the slap of the little waves against the quay. "This is … this is… unheard-of. Well, I've never heard of it."

  "There's been no meetings, then?" asked Gerd, only it wasn't really a question. "No reports or accounting that the Captain has to make to the Brothers? No elections? No treatment of grievances?" He sipped at his tankard, recalling Field, standing in the mess hall, his shout of Complaint, and what had come of it in the end. He remembered, also, that he, Gerd, had known there was something wrong, and that he had done nothing.

  Alissa was shaking her head. "Not in my time."

  "How long have you been in business there?"

  "Since Dad died, four years ago," said Alissa, shortly. "He'd had the forge for nearly twenty years."

  Gerd nodded slowly, still not taking his eyes off the harbour. "And he would be the last person to remember anything about a charter," he said, as if to himself.

  "Well," said Alissa, in a considering tone of voice, "you could try asking my Great-granny."
>
  Gerd slowly turned his face to her.

  10

  The old lady stared back at Gerd. Her eyes were milky blue, long faded. Alissa's great-grandmother was the oldest person Gerd had ever seen. She would have been a grown woman when old Bill Sniggen, back in Gerd's village, was still a babe in arms.

  She hadn't answered his question, and was squinting into his face as if she were trying to recognise him. He repeated the question a little louder, his heart sinking.

  The old eyes sharpened. "Yes, I understood you, young man," she said. "I'm a little deaf, but I'm not daft. It's just that it's been forty years or more since anybody thought to ask such a question, and I'm a little taken aback to hear it now. 'Do I know anything about a Charter for the Company?' Well, as it happens, yes, I do. Jessie?"

  "Yes, Mother?"

  "You know your great-granduncle Jordan's box? No, of course you don't. You've never seen it. Your mother and I put it in the attic when it came down from the Commandery." To Gerd: "My elder brother Jordan, who was Jessie's great-granduncle and Alissa's, too, was in the Company. That was a long time ago. He's been gone thirty-three years this summer, and I still miss him." She shook her head. "I've hung on too long for my own good, I think. But perhaps it's just as well. I might be of some use, even now."

  She turned to her grand-daughter. "In the attic, against the back wall, in the right-hand nook between the wall and the chimney. It's a box, walnut with brass fittings, about so big, with his name, Brother Jordan Delaine, on the lid. Alissa, help Jessie bring it down. I need something from it." Jessie traded glances with Alissa, half-amused, half-exasperated. "Get along now. I'll entertain Gerd until you come back." Her old face wrinkled like an image in a pool shattered by a stone. "I don't think we need a chaperone." She studied Gerd, who sat in the chair across the other side of the fireplace from her own. "Worse luck," she finished.

  Gerd found himself smiling. "I think," he said, solemnly, "I can restrain myself."

  "My reputation is safe, then. What a relief. Thank you, Jessie."

  Alissa followed her cousin out. Their steps sounded on the stairs. Gerd was left alone with the old lady. He looked around him, at the rich hangings on the walls, the heavy dark furniture, the fine glass in which he had been given wine, and tried to think of something to say.

  He'd been careful to be on his best behaviour, which meant the behaviour of which the Squire would have approved, and he thought he'd done well enough so far. It was just that nobody had ever thought him suitable company for their front parlour before. More, this was the front parlour of a substantial farmhouse, the sort of farmhouse that would have belonged to the lord's steward in his old village. He hadn't realised that Alissa's family was wealthy.

  "Oh, yes," said the old lady, as if reading his thoughts. "We've done quite well for ourselves. Five generations on this farm, and nobody's come and burned it down in all that time. It adds up after a while, you know, farming, so long as nobody burns you out. Or taxes you into penury."

  "It's a beautiful place," said Gerd, and found his words were not an idle courtesy. The land around was some of the best he had seen on Loriso, and heavy with crop. Fat beasts grazed the meadows.

  She settled herself more solidly in her armchair. "I daresay. But we could lose it all tomorrow if a Kihree pirate captain – or a dragon, maybe – decides that the Company of the Western Knights is just a row of toy soldiers nowadays, and more interested in profit than protection."

  The old eyes were deep and shrewd, and there was snapping anger in their depths. Gerd decided not to pretend he didn't understand her. "Maybe you might, if the pirate or the dragon were right about the Company. But is that what we are, truly?"

  "A row of toy soldiers? Maybe. That has its advantages, as you know. Much cheaper, and nearly as effective as riding around with a lance and a sword. My brother didn't like changing, but there's no doubt that warhorses are troublesome and expensive. Jordan used to have to bring fodder in from the mainland for his, you know."

  Gerd remembered Hugo, the Squire's warhorse. He had been troublesome and expensive, no doubt about that.

  The old woman watched him. "But more interested in profit?" she asked. "Ah, now that's the question. You asked me about a Charter. Now, why would a young fellow in the Company want to know about that, eh? There's no need to think about such things - no need to think at all, in fact. You get fed, you get housed, you get paid. You do as you're told. In fact, you turn yourselves into pieces of a machine. It's cheaper that way." She sniffed. "Funny thing, though. The taxes haven't come down. In fact, they're higher, and everyone is made to pay. Profit? I ran a farm for fifty years. Do you think I can't sniff a profit when someone's making one?"

  "Who, though?"

  "Another interesting question. You ask quite a few of them, young man, although I'm sure nobody in the Company thanks you for it. But I notice that the Council of Loriso built itself a fine new Council-house last year, with a banqueting-hall and a cellar full of Sancery wine. Well, it keeps the builders and the merchants happy. We farmers, too. At least the Council spends its profits."

  Gerd caught the faint emphasis on 'Council' and 'spends'. "But not everybody does, you think."

  "Money sticks to hands, especially the hands of people who like the feel of it." She looked up. Footsteps were descending the stairs. "Ah."

  Alissa and her cousin entered, carrying a square wooden box between them by its brass handles. It had been hastily dusted off, but a thread of spiderweb still dangled from one corner. Alissa took it while Jessie found a napkin and spread it on the table, and then they placed the box on it. They stood back.

  "Open it," the old lady said. "There's no lock. No knight ever locked up his goods. It was a point of honour." She glanced sidelong at Gerd. "I'm sure you've heard of honour, young man, though perhaps not lately."

  Gerd shook his head and looked aside, embarrassed. Alissa opened the box and looked inside. Gerd sat still in his chair, unwilling to go sorting through what must be private matters.

  The old lady watched from her chair. "As I remember, there was a pair of riding-gloves, rather worn, and his gilt spurs - the Company stopped wearing spurs forty years ago," she added, in an aside, to Gerd. "There was a lance-pennon, silk, with his arms embroidered on it." She cleared her throat. "And a bundle of papers. Bring me those."

  Alissa brought it out. It was like the parchment bundles that Gerd had cleaned, a week or so before, all different sizes, tied together with a faded red ribbon. She put them in her great-grandmother's lap. The old woman looked down at them.

  "Little enough, as the record of a man's life, isn't it? But this is all there is." She weighed them in her hand, and then held them out. "I think what you want is there, but you'll need to look through them yourself, young man," she said. "The last time I could read anything smaller than an inn-sign was before Alissa was born."

  Gerd stood and took them. "Perhaps Alissa should …"

  The old woman patted his hand as it held the bundle. "Don't be concerned, Gerd. Jordan wouldn't mind. In a way, you're closer family to him than Alissa is. Alissa is his great-grandniece, but to Jordan, you would be his own brother, his Brother Knight."

  Gerd looked down at the papers, frowning a little, confused, still reluctant.

  "By all means look through them now," said the old woman. "The light is best by the window. Alissa, you and Gerd must stay for supper, though I'm afraid simple country hospitality isn't the reason. Your uncle wants you to set up your forge here, so that he can get his blacksmithing done for free, while his neighbours pay him for it. Your aunt has been cooking all day, to help him to convince you. She'll tell you it's just a simple farmhouse supper, such as she always cooks. Take no notice of either of them."

  Alissa smiled, and then shook her head. "Don't you want me to stay, Gran? Not just to supper, I mean."

  "Of course I do. But what do you want?"

  "You know that, Gran. I want to be a swordsmith. A real one."

  "T
hen you can't stay, and it would be folly for you to try. There's nothing here but harrows and horseshoes. You would come to hate us. But the best place that you can do it would be the Wizard's Isle. They allow women to learn secrets."

  "Magical secrets too, Gran?"

  "Pshaw. A lot of what they do isn't magic. They forge some very good steel, you know. Jordan had a Wizard's Isle blade, and it wasn't magic that made it hard as glass and springy as a birch wand. It was good steel, that was all. Do you want to know the secrets of its make?"

  "More than anything, Gran. I can almost hear Dad whispering in my ear."

  "Aye. There are nights I wake and hear the same. And many other voices, too, calling to me. One of these nights I'll follow them. Well, and you must go, then - with my blessing, if that means anything at all."

  Gerd, listening, wondered how he would have answered that question. What did he want?