Zaragoz Read online

  "I have heard it said that the wood elves are fearsome warriors and clever magicians," said the pirate lord, casually.

  "Then you have heaid mistaken rumours," Orfeo countered.

  "The folk I knew were more peaceful by far than the men among whom I have moved in recent times. They reserved their bows for hunting game, and such magic as they had was to conceal them within the forest, and to help the forest bear such fruit as it could.

  They had better lives than the warlike, and they made me a lover of peace as well as freedom."

  "And a lover of their quiet magic, too?"

  "Their magic was their own, my lord," Orfeo told him, with some impatience at being so artlessly tried, "and not such as to be trusted to a human foundling. They kept me for a while; they never sought to make me one of their kind."

  "A pity," said the Caliph, levelly. "But let us not talk of your youth. It is your sojourn in Zaragoz which interests me. Many 16

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  years have passed since I saw a man who had been in Zaragoz, and though I thought I had laid its memory to rest, I find that my curiosity waited only for the spark to set it afire—for what reason I may explain to you when I have heard what you have to tell. I beg you to leave out nothing, for I would know all that you know, in the richness of its every detail."

  "And so you shall," said Orfeo, signing with his right hand that the other should take his seat.

  When the Caliph lifted his cup again, and drank from it, Orfeo cleared his throat and began. "Orfeo," he said, "had walked beneath the hot sun for many an hour, along the north shore of the river Eboro..."

  "You tell the story as if it had happened to another," said the Caliph, uneasily, "although the name which you use is your own.

  Why do you not say 'I had walked' as any other man would?"

  "It is not the proper way to make a story," said Orfeo, gently.

  "And the feet that a story is true does not mean that it should cease to be a story. When a man says 'I did this' and proceeds to tell you about the bravo whom he bested in a fight, or the fish which he landed from the stream, does he not often lose the truth in self-aggrandizement? If I am to tell you most precisely what happened, then I must look at this man who was myself with a dispassionate eye, to weigh what he did and why as though his lack of heroism and cleverness were neither here nor there.

  Otherwise, the temptation to remake him in a finer image might prove too strong. I beg you, my lord of Mahabbah and the Twin Seas, to let me do this in the proper way."

  "Very well," said the Caliph, though he sounded a fraction unsure. "I will not interrupt again."

  "Well and good, my lord," said Orfeo, placidly. "And so: Orfeo had walked beneath the hot sun for many an hour..."

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  Chapter One

  Orfeo had walked beneath the hot sun for many an hour, along the north shore of the river Eboro. It was a lonely place, without a proper path. There were no ferrymen's stations on this reach of the river, for there were few travellers who passed this way.

  The paths which he had earlier followed through the forest were used only by woodcutters and hunters, who had little reason to cross the miles of barer land which separated them from the river's course.

  The Eboro was still fast-flowing here, not far from the foot of its descent from the eastern reaches of the Irrana mountains. It would slow in its paces as it described a long and lazy loop across the Estalian plain before quickening again into the gorges by which it navigated an unlikely path through the Abasko hills to reach the sea beyond Tobaro.

  He had left the forest behind a little while ago, and was now in open pasturelands where sheep and goats were grazing. There were farms on the higher ground in the north, with orange groves and vineyards, from whose fields the animals could be driven down to the river to drink their fill. Where he walked the soil had been scoured away by floodwaterto leave a dry and sandy reach where thorny bushes and tall grasses grew in ragged clumps.

  Ahead of him, he could see a road which descended from the Brian Craig

  farmland to meet the river at a place where it became calmer in its flow, and wider. The road and the river continued together, side by side, and Orfeo knew that it would bring him to a more populous land, and eventually to a town of some size.

  Although the land to the south of the river stretched away very flatly to a far horizon Orfeo's view of the land on the north shore of the river was still blocked by trees and low hills. He was surprised therefore, when he followed the road and the river around a leisurely bend, to see a single conical crag, which had not been visible to him before, loom upon that part of the horizon in a manner both striking and incongruous.

  With low-lying land all around it this lone crag seemed not to belong to the landscape at all. It was as though some god carrying mountains to a place where they belonged had suffered an accident which chipped the peak from one of them, and had carelessly let it fall. Perched atop the crag was a citadel, but the rocky slopes beneath were too sheer to allow more than thirty or forty houses to cling there; thus, the town over which the castle stood was arranged in a tight ring about its base, confined by a low wall.

  The farms which fed it formed a greater circle, cut across one side by the river's course.

  Orfeo was glad to see the town, because he had slept in the open for three nights, and had exhausted his supplies of food.

  This was the first time he had come into the sprawling land called Estalia, and this was the first of its petty kingdoms whose people would have the pleasure of receiving him.

  He had been told by the hillmen of Irrana that he could expect a proper welcome in Estalia, for its folk had the conceit to think themselves the eldest and most civilized race of all the men of the Old World, and were fond of music and tale-telling. The new dances which had recently become the fashion in the best cities of Bretonnia had been unknown in the strongholds of Irrana, but he knew that they would be popular in Estalia because he had met a northward-bound traveller of his own kind not three weeks since, who had listed a dozen kingdoms and dukedoms where the nobility were ever avid to make this new display of their gentility. That same man had told him that an important Estalian festival would soon fall due, called the Night of Masks, and had urged him to make what speed he could to reach a city of the plain Zaragoz

  before that day, when there would be a chance to earn a healthy wage with his lute and his voice.

  When he first saw the lonely crag it did not seem so far to the town, but distances were deceptive in this level terrain and the lonely crag with its pale fortress seemed to grow no larger as he walked on. He never lost sight of the peak again, but the rest of the crag was often hidden from him by the crowns of trees which, though they grew in no great profusion, were aggregated in his line of sight by the flatness of the land.

  While the town was still some miles away Orfeo came to a junction, where the river road met another which came from the north-east. Although it was not a proper crossroads, there being no southward extension, the place was marked by two things which were often placed at crossroads in that region: a signpost, and a scaffold. The one was a guide for honest travellers, the other a macabre warning to the highway robbers who all-too-often outnumbered them.

  The signpost had only one arm, upon which was written only one name: ZARAGOZ. It pointed towards the invisible town and the all-too-obvious castle on the crag.

  The scaffold, on the other hand, had two arms, and both bore messages, though neither had been written in the recent past. The corpses which hung there had been dried by the sun so that the flesh was shrivelled and leathery, the bones within barely connected by the rotting sinews. The legs were missing, having been stolen by scavenging beasts, but the wolves of the region plainly could not leap high enough to pull down all they might have desired.

  There were two black carrion-birds sitting on one arm of the scaffold, and they watched Orfeo approach without apparent interest or alarm.

  The scaffold w
as a sad and sorry sight, and as Orfeo came closer to it whatever life was left in his tired legs seemed to ebb away.

  He looked steadily into the black eyes of one of the ravens, which met his gaze with a morbid stare, as though to say: "The day might come when you are here beneath me, and I will come to tease what morsels I can from your pitiful human flesh."

  "Not yet, my friend," said Orfeo, aloud. "Not yet." Caw, replied the raven, hoarsely, as it condescended at last to leave its station.

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  Tiredly, Orfeo looked about for a place to rest, where he might hide from the sun and the scaffold for a while, until he could cheerfully continue his journey to the citadel of Zaragoz.

  He saw a cluster of a dozen thin trees beside the road which came from the north-east. There was just enough shade within the stand to make a pleasant place to rest, and so he found a spot where he could lay down his pack, took a few frugal sips from his water-skin, and set his head against the bole of a tree.

  He intended only to close his eyes for a few minutes, and not actually to sleep, but he had underestimated the extent of his fatigue. He drifted off into a dream.

  He was awakened by the sound of voices, and came to himself with something of a start, realizing immediately that more time had passed than he had planned.

  He sat up quickly, and looked for the angle of the sun to see how late it was. The day had less than an hour remaining before the sun would set, and he cursed silently—silently because there was something in the tenor of the voices he could hear which counselled caution. He came cautiously to his feet and looked out from the shelter of the trees to see what was happening.

  There was a lone man backed up against the signpost which bore the name of Zaragoz. He was dressed in the habit of a priest—not a lightly-coloured costume such as most of the priests of these warm lowlands wore, but a darker one, such as priests in more northerly lands adopted. The hood was over his head, concealing his face. In his right hand he had a staff, which was plainer than the staffs which most spellcasters carried, rather resembling the kind of quarterstaff which was used as a weapon by the foresters of the north. The priest's other hand clutched the strap of the pack he bore upon his back, which he seemed to be trying to shield from the attentions of a group of five men.

  The men must have come upon him quickly, and three had already moved to block all the ways by which he might seek to make an escape. The fourth was moving cautiously forward to face the priest while the fifth hung back, close to the trees where Orfeo hid. All five of the bandits were armed—one with an axe, two with long knives and two with cudgels—but they were in no hurry to get to grips with the man they were threatening, and 24

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  seemed to be a little in awe of him.

  Orfeo was not surprised by this reluctance; even five-to-one might be unfavourable odds when common brigands sought to make victim of a spellcaster. Priests were usually frugal men, whose magical powers were limited, but this was presumably no local priest whose abilities were fully known, and there was no way by which his talents could be reliably estimated. In all probability, he was harmless, but there was a possibility that he was not—and without even knowing which god he served, the boldest and most desperate of robbers would be inclined to hesitate when the moment came to challenge him.

  Orfeo drew the slender sword which was scabbarded at his belt.

  He wanted only to have the weapon ready, and had no firm intention of rushing immediately to the aid of the fellow under siege, but the shiny blade caught the light of the lowering sun, and the man who stood close by picked up the gleam in the corner of his eye. He turned promptly, calling a warning to his fellows and lunging forward with the blade which he held. Orfeo had no difficulty turning the blow aside, and parried a second lunge with ease before thrusting with his own sword. The robber stumbled backwards hurriedly, realizing that he had a real swordsman to face—one who could kill him easily in fair combat.

  The others had turned now, and as their companion hurried to place himself alongside the man with the axe Orfeo could see the profound unease in their feces. Their minds were already clouded by doubt, and now that they faced two strangers instead of one they were even less certain of themselves. They did not know what to do.

  Orfeo knew that it was safer to help them make up their minds than trust to their discretion, for these were reckless men, whose very foolishness might make them dangerous. He did not doubt that he could out-fence them all, but in a melee even an expert fighter might be hurt by an unskilled thrust.

  He stepped quickly from his hiding-place, and said: "You are surely tempting fate when you choose to descend upon your prey beneath such a sign as this."

  With the tip of his sword he pointed to the broken corpses on the scaffold. His voice was light, its tone expressing amusement, though in truth his heart had begun to race.

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  The man with the axe took one step towards him, and Orfeo smiled. "I fear that I have no practice-sword," he said. "I must engage you with my blade, if you will it, and I think you have no more chance against its sting than you have against that man's magic. No doubt there are many signposts to Zaragoz, as there seem to be so many silly fellows on its roads, so eager to dress the scaffolds that they let fat merchants pass, descending instead on men too dangerous to rob and too poor to be worth the robbing.

  Still, 'tis a cleaner death to be cut than to be hanged, so come to me and I'll make a neater end of you than any other you could hope to meet today."

  While he spoke, he stared full into the eyes of the brigand who had taken a step towards him, and was heartily glad to see the fragile courage melt from the other's gaze.

  It only needed one of the five to turn from his purpose to give the others what they sorely needed—advice to run away. The man with the axe was easily convinced that he would be all kinds of a fool if he elected to face Orfeo's blade, and so he reversed the step which he had taken, and then turned on his heel to run along the road to the north, as fast as he could go.

  His four companions did their very best to overtake him, but while Orfeo watched them, they did not manage to achieve that goal.

  When they were out of sight, Orfeo returned to the trees to pick up his pack. Then he came back along the road to the place where the priest still waited, holding on to his pack. It was impossible to tell, now, whether he had been frightened, or whether he had needed Orfeo's help.

  "Highwaymen without horses," said Orfeo, drily. "I doubt they will make much progress in the art of theft."

  "This is as poor a realm for thieves," replied the priest, in a voice equally dry, "as it is for aught else. The sun-dried land offers poor sustenance to those who must break their backs to till and plant it. Zaragoz might be reckoned the least of all the kingdoms in Estalia—and the richness of robbers' prey must in the end be determined by the richness of the soil."

  Orfeo tried to look more closely at the other man's face, but the hood's shadow was too deep. He caught a glimpse of bronzed skin and a remarkably hooked nose, but could not yet see the 26

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  priest's eyes or mouth. Nor did the other make any effort to show himself, seemingly content to hide from all the world. He was a big man, though—almost as tall as Orfeo, whose height was unusual, and more sturdily built than the player.

  Orfeo sheathed his sword, and told the other his name. He did not say anything about what manner of man he was, or where he was bound, but he knew that the lute which was strapped to his pack would identify him as an itinerant entertainer.

  "Are you bound for Zaragoz?" asked the priest, without immediately revealing his own name. .

  "I believe that I am," answered Orfeo. "There is certainly no other town which I could reach before sunset, and its name was included in a list which was read to me by another man of my profession. They know the new dances there, I think, but have no expert players of their own to lead them. Perhaps the k
ing will be glad to see me."

  "Zaragoz has no king," said the priest, "but only a Duke. I am not sure that the present Duke is the sort of man to give liberal welcome to a travelling musician, but it is not for me to judge.

  His castle is a dour place which would certainly gain from a measure of your art."

  "Then you know the town?" said Orfeo, courteously. "You are bound for its temple, perhaps—or one of its shrines?"

  "I do not think that there are shrines of the Gods of Law in that town," replied the other. "But I own that I have not been there for many years. My name is Arcangelo, and I would be honoured if we could walk the road together."

  Orfeo was mildly puzzled by this speech, but did not let his doubt show in his face. He knew little enough of the Gods of Law and their followers, and could not easily judge what mission such a one might have, though he had heard of the exploits of servants of the god Solkan, master of witchfinders. Solkan's priests were wrathful men, ever eager to take arms against the viler kinds of sorcery, and if this Arcangelo was of their company he might not be the most comfortable of companions. But he seemed mild enough for the moment, and the road was clearly unsafe for lone travellers.

  "I would be glad if you could tell me a little of Zaragoz," said Orfeo, as the two moved off together. "My road will eventually 27

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  take me to the southern lands, but I do not know how quickly I should hurry on my way. I have heard that there is a feast-day called the Night of Masks, and I wonder whether I should wait in Zaragoz until it comes, or pass through to a richer realm."

  The priest did not answer immediately, but seemed lost in thought. In the end, though, he said: "It is too late to cross the river tonight. As you have said, you must spend this night at least in the town. If what happened just now is a true indication of the safety of the road, we must look for a secure lodging within its walls. But as to the matter of your staying beyond tomorrow, I am reluctant to give you advice."