Riddle Master of Hed Read online

  "That," Tristan said icily, "was when there was someone to take care of the house. Now there isn't. I do try." She whirled away, the hens fluttering out of her path. Eliard felt at his stiff hair, sighing.

  "My brains are made of oak. If you pump for me, I'll pump for you."

  They stripped and washed behind the house. Then Eliard went to Grim Oakland's farm to help load the grain in his storage barn onto carts, and Morgon walked through the stubbled fields to the shore road that led to Tol.

  The three trade-ships, their sails furled, had just docked. A ramp boomed down from one of them as Morgon stepped onto the wharf; he watched a horse being led down by a sailor, a beautiful, long-legged mare bred in An, jet black, with a bridle that flashed minute flecks of jewels in the sun. Then traders hailed him from the prow of a ship, and he went to meet them as they disembarked.

  They were a vivid group, some dressed in the long, thin, orange and red coats from Herun, others in full robes from An, or the close-fitting, lavishly embroidered tunics from Ymris. They wore rings and chains from Isig, fur-lined caps from Osterland, which they gave away, together with bone-handled knives and copper brooches, to the children clustering shyly to watch. The ships carried, among other things, iron from Isig and Herun wine.

  Grim Oakland came a few minutes later, as Morgon was inspecting the wine.

  "I'd need a drink, too, after that," he commented. Morgon started to smile and changed his mind. "Is the gram loaded?"

  "Nearly. Harl Stone is bringing the wool and skins down from your barn. You'd be wise to take all the metal they carry."

  Morgon nodded, his eyes straying again to the black horse tethered to the dock rail. A sailor lugged a saddle down from the ship, balanced it on the rail next to the horse. Morgon gestured with his cup.

  "Who owns that mare? It looks like someone came with the traders. Or else Eliard traded Akren for her secretly."

  "I don't know," Grim said, his red-grey brows peaked. "Lad, it's none of my business, but you shouldn't let your private inclinations interfere with the duty you were born to."

  Morgon sipped wine. "They don't interfere."

  "It would be a grave interference if you were dead,"

  He shrugged. "There's Eliard."

  Grim heaved a sigh. "I told your father not to send you to that school. It addled your thinking. But no. He wouldn't listen. I told him it was wrong to let you go away from Hed so long; it's never been done, no good would come of it. And I was right. No good has come. You running off to a strange land, playing riddle-games with—with a man who should have the decency to stay put once he's dead and buried in the earth. It's not good. It's not—it's not the way a land-ruler of Hed should want to behave. It's not done."

  Morgon held the cool metal of the cup against his cracked mouth. "Peven couldn't help wandering around after he was dead. He killed seven of his sons with misused wizardry, and then himself out of sorrow and shame. He couldn't rest in the ground. He told me that after so many years he had a hard time remembering all his sons' names. That worried him- I learned their names at Caithnard, so I could tell him. It cheered him up."

  Grim's face was red as a turkey wattle. "It's hide-cent," he snapped. He moved away, lifted the lid on a chest full of bars of iron, and slammed it shut again. A trader spoke at Morgon's elbow.

  "You are pleased with the wine, Lord?"

  Morgon turned, nodding. The trader ported a thin, leaf-green coat from Herun, a cap of white mink, and a harp of black wood slung by a strap of white leather over one shoulder. Morgon said, "Whose horse? Where did you get that harp?"

  The trader grinned, sliding it from his shoulder. "Remembering how your lordship likes harps, I found this one for you in An. It was the harp of the harpist of Lord Col of Hel. It is quite old, but see how beautifully preserved."

  Morgon slid his hands down the fine, carved, pieces. He brushed the strings with his fingers, then plucked one softly. "What would I do with all those strings?" he murmured. "There must be over thirty."

  "Do you like it? Keep it with you awhile; play it,"

  "I can't possibly ..."

  The trader silenced him with a flick of hand. "How can you set a value to such a harp? Take it, become acquainted with it; there is no need to make a decision now." He slipped the strap over Morgon's head. "If you like it, no doubt we can come to a satisfactory arrangement ..."

  "No doubt." He caught Grim Oakland's eye and blushed.

  He carried the harp with him to the trade-hall at Tol, where the traders inspected his beer, grain and wool, ate cheese and fruit, and bartered for an hour with him while Grim Oakland stood watchfully at his elbow. Empty carts were brought to the dock then, to load metal, casks of wine, and blocks of salt from the beds above Caithnard. Plow horses to be taken to Herun and An were penned near the dock for loading; the traders began to tally the gram sacks and kegs of beer. Wyndon Amory's carts lumbered down the coast road, unexpectedly, near noon.

  Cannon Master, riding in the back of one, leaped down and said to Morgon, "Wyndon sent them out yesterday; one of them lost a wheel so the drivers fixed it at Sil Wold's farm and stayed the night. I met them coming. Did they talk you into a harp?"

  "Almost. Listen to it."

  "Morgon, you know I'm as musical as a tin bucket Your mouth looks like a squashed plum."

  "Don't make me laugh," Morgon pleaded. "Will you and Eliard take the traders to Akren? They're about finished here."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Buy a horse. And a pair of shoes."

  Cannon's brows rose. "And a harp?"

  "Maybe. Yes."

  He chuckled. "Good. I'll take Eliard away for you."

  Morgon wandered down into the belly of a ship where half a dozen horses from An were stabled for the journey. He studied them while men stacked sacks of grain beyond him in the shadowy hold. A trader found him there; they talked awhile, Morgon running his fingers down the sleek neck of a stallion the color of polished wood. He emerged finally, drawing deep breaths of clean air. Most of the carts were gone; the sailors were drifting toward the trade-hall to eat. The sea nuzzled the ships, swirled white around the massive trunks of pine supporting the docks. He went to the end of the pier and sat down. In the distance, the fishing boats from Tol rose and dipped like ducks in the water; far beyond them, a dark thread along the horizon, lay the vast, sprawling mainland, the realm of the High One.

  He set the harp on his knee and played a harvest-song whose brisk, even rhythm kept time to the sweep of a scythe. A fragment of a Ymris ballad teased his memory; he was picking it out haltingly from the strings when a shadow fell over his hands. He looked up.

  A man he had never seen before, neither trader nor sailor, stood beside him. He was quietly dressed; the fine cloth and color of his blue-black tunic, the heavy chain of linked, stamped squares of silver on his breast were bewildering. His face was lean, fine-bone, neither young nor old; his hair-was a loose cap of silver.

  "Morgon of Hed?"

  "Yes."

  "I am Deth, the High One's harpist."

  Morgon swallowed. He shifted to rise, but the harpist forestalled him, squatting down to look at the harp.

  "Uon," he said, showing Morgon a name half-hidden in a whorl of design. "He was a harpmaker in Hel three centuries ago. There are only five of his harps in existence."

  "The trader said it belonged to the harpist of Lord Col. Did you come—? You must have come with them. Is that your horse? Why didn't you tell me before that you were here?"

  "You were busy; I preferred to wait. The High One instructed me last spring to come to Hed, to express his sorrow over the deaths of Athol and Spring. But I was trapped in Isig by a stubborn winter, delayed in Ymris by a seige of Caerweddin, and requested, just as I was about to embark from Caithnard, in an urgent message from Mathom of An, to get to Anuin. I'm sorry to have come so late."

  "I remember your name," Morgon said slowly. "My father used to say Deth played at his wedding." He stopped, listeni
ng to his words; a shudder weltered out of him unexpectedly. "I'm sorry. He thought it was funny. He loved your harping. I would like to hear you play."

  The harpist settled himself on the pier and picked up Uon's harp. "What would you like to hear?"

  Morgon felt his mouth pulled awry in spite of himself by a smile. "Play... let me think. Would you play what I was trying to play?"

  " 'The Lament for Belu and Bilo.' " Deth tuned a string softly and began the ancient ballad.

  Belu so fair was born with the dark Bilo, the dark; death bound them also. Mourn Belu, fine ladies, Mourn Bilo.

  His fingers drew the tale faultlessly from the flashing, close-set strings. Morgon listened motionlessly, his eyes on the smooth, detached face. The skilled hands, the fine voice worn to precision, traced the path of Bilo, helpless in its turbulence, the death he left in his wake, the death that trailed him, that rode behind Belu on his horse, ran at his horse's side like a hound.

  Belu so fair followed the dark Bilo; death followed them so; Death cried to Bilo out of Belu's voice, to Belu, out of Bilo ...

  The long, surfeited sigh of the tide broke the silence of their deaths. Morgon stirred. He put his hand on the dark, carved face of the harp.

  "If I could make that sound come out of that harp, I would sell my name for it and go nameless."

  Deth smiled. "That's too high a price to pay even for one of Uon's harps. What are the traders asking for it?"

  He shrugged. "They'll take what I'm offering for it." "You want it that badly?"

  Morgon looked at him. "I would sell my name for it, but not the grain my farmers have scorched their backs harvesting, or the horses they have raised and gentled. What I will offer belongs only to me."

  "There's no need to justify yourself to me," the harpist said mildly. Morgon's mouth crooked; he touched it absently.

  "I'm sorry. I spent half the morning justifying myself."

  "For what?"

  His eyes dropped to the rough, iron-bound planks of the pier; he answered the quiet, skilled stranger impulsively. "Do you know how my parents died?" "Yes."

  "My mother wanted to see Caitbnard. My father had come two or three times to visit me while I was at the College of Riddle-Masters at Caithnard, That sounds simple, but it was a very courageous thing for him to do: leave Hed, go to a great, strange city. The Princes of Hed are rooted to Hed. When I came home a year ago, after spending three years there, I found my father full of stories about what he had seen—the trade-shops, the people from different lands—and when he mentioned a shop with bolts of cloth and furs and dyes from five kingdoms, my mother couldn't resist going. She loved the feel and colors of fine cloth. So last spring they sailed over with the traders when the spring trading was done. And they never came back. The return ship was lost. They never came back." He touched a nailhead, traced a circle around it. "There was something I had been wanting to do for a long time. I did it, then. My brother Eliard found out about it this morning. I didn't tell him at the time because I knew he would be upset. I just told him that I was going to west Hed for a few days, not that I was going across the sea to An."

  "To An? Why did you—" He stopped. His voice went suddenly thin as a lath. "Morgon of Hed, did you win Peven's crown?"

  Morgon's head rose sharply. He said after a moment, "Yes. How—? Yes."

  "You didn't tell the King of An—"

  "I didn't tell anyone. I didn't want to talk about it."

  "Auber of Aum, one of the descendents of Peven, went to that tower to try to win back the crown of Aum from the dead lord and found the crown gone and Peven pleading to be set free to leave the tower. Auber demanded in vain the name of the man who had taken the crown; Peven said only that he would answer no more riddles. Auber told Mathom, and Mathom, faced with the news that someone had slipped quietly into his land, won a riddle-game men have lost their lives over for centuries, and left as quietly, summoned me from Caithnard and asked me to find that crown. Hed is the last place I expected it to be."

  "It's been under my bed," Morgon said blankly. "The only private place in Akren. I don't understand. Does Mathom want it back? I don't need it. I haven't even looked at it since I brought it home. But I thought Mathom of all people would understand—"

  "The crown is yours by right. Mathom would be the last to contest that." He paused; there was an expression in his eyes that puzzled Morgon. He added gently, "And yours, if you choose, is Mathom's daughter, Raederle."

  Morgon swallowed. He found himself on his feet, looking down at the harpist, and he knelt down, seeing suddenly, instead of the harpist, a pale, high-boned face full of unexpected expressions, shaking itself free of a long, fine mass of red hah".

  He whispered, "Raederle. I know her. Mathom's son Rood was at the college with me; we were good friends. She used to visit him there. ... I don't understand."

  "The King made a vow at her birth to give her only to the man who took the crown of Aum from Peven."

  "He made a ... What a stupid thing for him to do, promising Raederle to any man with enough brains to outwit Peven. He could have been anyone—" He stopped, the blood receding a little beneath his tan. "It was me."

  "Yes."

  "But I can't. . . She can't marry a farmer. Mathom will never consent."

  "Mathom follows his own inclinations. I suggest you ask him."

  Morgon gazed at him. "You mean cross the sea to Anuin, to the king's court, walk into his great hall in cold blood and ask him?"

  "You walked into Peven's tower."

  "That was different. I didn't have lords from the three portions of An watching me, then."

  "Morgon, Mathom bound himself to his vow with his own name, and the lords of An, who have lost ancestors, brothers, even sons in that tower, will give you nothing less than honor for your courage and wit. The only question you have to consider at this moment is: Do you want to marry Raederle?"

  He stood up again, desperate with uncertainty, ran his hands through his hair, and the wind, roused from the sea, whipped it straight back from his face. "Raederle." A pattern of stars high above one brow flamed vividly against his skin. He saw her face again, at a distance, turned back to look at him. "Raederle."

  He saw the harpist's face go suddenly still, as if the wind had snatched in passing its expression and breath. The uncertainty ended in him like a song's ending.

  "Yes."

  MORGON SAT ON A KEG OF BEER ON THE DECK OF A trade-ship the next morning, watching the wake widen and measure Hed like a compass. At the foot of the keg lay a pack of clothes Tristan had put together for him, talking all the while so that neither of them was sure what was in it besides the crown. It bulged oddly, as though she had put everything she touched into it, talking. Eliard had said very little. He had left Morgon's room after a while; Morgon had found him in the shed, pounding out a horseshoe.

  He had said, remembering, "I was going to get you a chestnut stallion from An with the crown."

  And Eliard threw the tongs and heated shoe into the water, and, gripping Morgon's shoulders, had borne him back against the wall, saying, "Don't think you can bribe me with a horse," which made no sense to Morgon, or, after a moment, to Eliard. He let go of Morgon, his face falling into easier, perplexed lines.

  "I'm sorry. It just frightens me when you leave, now. Will she like it here?"

  "I wish I knew."

  Tristan, following him with his cloak over her arm as he prepared to leave, stopped in the middle of the hall, her face strange to him in its sudden vulnerability. She looked around at the plain, polished walls, pulled a chair straight at a table. "Morgon, I hope she can laugh," she whispered.

  The ship scuttled before the wind, Hed grew small, blurred in the distance. The High One's harpist had come to stand at the railing, his grey cloak snapped behind him like a banner. Morgon's eyes wandered to his face, unlined, untouched by the sun. A sense of incongruity nudged his mind, of a riddle shaping the silver-white hair, the fine curve of bone.

  The harp
ist turned his head, met Morgon's eyes.

  Morgon asked curiously, "What land are you from?"

  "No land. I was born in Lungold."

  "The wizards' city? Who taught you to harp?"

  "Many people. I took my name from the Morgol Cron's harpist Tirunedeth, who taught me the songs of Herun. I asked him for it before he died."

  "Cron," Morgon said. "Ylcorcronlth?"

  "Yes."

  "He ruled Herun six hundred years ago."

  "I was born," the harpist said tranquilly, "not long after the founding of Lungold, a thousand years ago."

  Morgon was motionless save for the sway of his body to the sea's rhythm. Little threads of light wove and broke on the sea beyond the sunlit, detached face. He whispered, "No wonder you harp like that. You've had a thousand years to learn the harp-songs of the High One's realm. You don't look old. My father looked older when he died. Are you a wizard's son?" He looked down at his hands then, linked around his knees, and said apologetically, "Forgive me. It's none of my business. I was just—"