The Jargoon Pard

3 Of The Trader Ibycus and the Jargoon Belt He Brought

Pergvin’s choice of mount was strange, I thought, but I did not question his actions, for I knew little of the customs of my new life. When he brought forth a slow-moving mare, the weight of years making her step ponderous, I was content enough. Any horse would be a wonder in my eyes at that moment.

Though the mare snorted and pawed the ground once or twice, she stood steadily enough as Pergvin showed me how to mount. However, as I settled in the saddle, she flung up her head and snorted loudly, so that he caught the reins and spoke softly to her, running his hand along the curve of her thick neck as if he had good reason to soothe some fear she held.

She began to sweat and the acid smell was thick in my nostrils. Pergvin led her on, out of the courtyard gate, and into the paddock beyond the Keep where the mounts were exercised. There my lessons began, and I caught eagerly at every word of instruction my tutor uttered, for I found being so mounted was a kind of freedom in itself—promising better to come, even if Pergvin, walking beside me, now kept one hand on the reins that I held awkwardly, while the mare ambled along.

I was disappointed when Pergvin headed once more inward the Keep Gate, hating to exchange the wide outside for the haunted narrow ways within. Just inside the gate, he halted the mare and swung me down from the saddle, pointing to the door of the Youths’ Tower and bidding me await him there, while he led the mare back to the stable.

For the first time then I was aware that there were watchers. Grooms and men-at-arms were unusually numerous in the courtyard. As I crossed, they moved out of my path without looking directly at me. I shivered as I reached the door where I was to wait, for I was not a stupid boy, even if young, and I believed that there had suddenly arisen some barrier about me of which both animals and men were seemingly knowledgeable, though I myself could not see nor sense it. My mind returned to that strange night within Ursilla’s chamber. What had been wrought there then that had done this to me?

Now my awe of Ursilla and of my mother was for the first time colored by resentment. For if they had so set me apart from the outer life of the Keep by the art they practiced, then I was surely the loser. I wanted none of their solicitude even if it might protect me from Maughus’s bullying.

As Pergvin neared the stable, the men scattered quickly, to disappear here and there out of sight, as if they did not wish him to know they had been interested in us. Never before in my life had I felt so alone. But I held my head high, gazing openly around as if I saw nothing of their furtive goings, nor believed that any matter was amiss. Even as I had learned to so protect my thoughts from Ursilla and my mother, so must I wear the same outward shell here, I now believed.

That was my introduction to the man-world of Car Do Prawn. Had it not been for Pergvin always there, quick to offer some unobtrusive advice or aid, I know not what might have become of me. For I learned speedily that all animals had a strong dislike for my company. If I approached the hounds, they first gave tongue as they might on sighting some ordained quarry, then that lessened until they whined, slavered and fled.

I could not mount any horse until Pergvin had soothed it with what I early learned was a dried herb potion he concocted in secret. Even then the creature sweated profusely and shivered while I was on its back.

Yet in the matter of arms, I was not so great a disappointment. Though I was lighter by far of body than my cousin Maughus, still I could make up by a keen eye and the learning of sword skills what I lacked of his strength. With the crossbow, I was a skilled marksman within a year, using a lighter weapon Pergvin produced for me.

It was my delight, along with the sword he had found somewhere in the armory, one more slender of blade and less of weight than the usual, and one that, when I took it up, seemed as if it had been forged just for my service. I asked once if both weapons had been made for Maughus as a young boy, for I did not want to use any of his arms, even if they were now discarded, lest it cause fresh trouble between us. But Pergvin had said no, that these were from an earlier time, fashioned for another youth.

As he told me that, he frowned a little. Though he looked at me as he spoke, yet I had the feeling that he did not really see me at that moment but someone else he had known. So, though I did not often ask questions, I was moved then to do so.

“Who was he, Pergvin? And did you know him?”

For a long moment I thought that he was not going to make me any answer. In truth I had the impression that I had overstepped some permitted bond—just as if I had dared to question Ursilla concerning some part of her forbidden knowledge.

Then Pergvin gave a glance right and left. He might have been checking to see if any were near enough to overhear. However, the Keep was well emptied at that hour, for my uncle had ridden forth on the hunt into the north forest lands. Early it had been learned that such expeditions were not for me, for no horse or hound would stay to their business were I present. Thus was another black mark laid against me openly by Maughus—one I could in no way refute.

“He was a son of the House,” Pergvin said reluctantly. “Or rather a halfling son—”

Then he hesitated so long I was moved to spur him on.

“What mean you by halfling son, Pergvin?”

“It was in the long ago when the Lady Eldris was but a young maid. There was a love-spell laid upon her and she answered it—”

He had truly astounded me now. The Lady Eldris was as long lived as all our blood and years counted for little in our aging. But to me, she was a stern forbidding dame with nothing lightsome about her. To think of her drawn by that fabled spell, a love-call, was the same as saying that one fine spring morning the west Tower freed its stones from the earth and danced a planting frolic.

I think Pergvin read my incredulous reception of the confidence in my countenance, for this time his tone was a little drier and sharper.

“All of us were young once, Lord Kethan. There will come doubtless a day when you shall remember and another be startled at your words. Yes, the Lady Eldris went as she was called. But it was not a man of our Clans who laid the spell upon her.

“Those were the days of the Last Struggle, and there was a gathering of Clans and others who were then our allies to determine defenses and ploys against the Dark Lord of Ragaard the Less. Since all who answered the summons needs must leave their Keeps but lightly defended if they were to join such a gathering, the women and children were taken to the Clan fortresses for shelter—those who agreed. For as you know, there were ladies then who rode in armor and led levies from their own lands.

“While at the Fortress of the Redmantle, the Lady Eldris was seen and desired by one of the Wereriders—a lord among them. It was he who laid the spell that brought her to his bed. But his spell did not last, and no real liking came of their meeting on her part. So that in time she returned to her own people bringing with her their young son—

“It is said that when she left, her Werelord and his Clan were elsewhere, for they were always in the midst of the bitterest fighting, they being what they were born to be. And, by the time he got note of her going, it was too late for him to claim her again.

“Her brother, Lord Kardis (he who fell some years later at the Battle of Thos), gave back freely her Clan right and laid it also on her son. However, as the boy grew older he showed the blood of his father the stronger. At last he went to Gray Towers where he could find cup-fellows and shield-companions of his own kind. Then later, when the Seven Lords won peace, those of the Werefolk were sent into exile, for their blood is ever hot and they take not easily to a world without war. It was only a few short seasons ago they returned to Arvon from far wandering. But I do not think that any old sorrow binds the Lady Eldris. She later took the Lord Erach’s father to husband and bore both him and your Lady Mother. Thus perhaps time faded all that lay behind. But it is true that her elder son did dwell here in his early youth, and that those weapons were his. However, all this is now a matter best forgot, my Lord.”

“Wererider—” I repeated, wishing I dared ask more about that unknown half uncle of mine from the past. Only it was plain that Pergvin would not talk more about him.

There are many strange folk in Arvon. We are not all of one kind or nature. Some are very different indeed when we compare them to ourselves. Of that number not a few are dangerous enough so that those of the Clans avoid them and their territories. There are those totally unlike us as to body and mind, others that mingle within their natures both that which is like unto us and that which is strange beyond our understanding, a third kind that are both different and enemies to our ways.

Yet it is not any physical difference alone that raises barriers between one sort and another, but rather spirits that cannot meet. I have seen the forest people come freely to our sowing feasts, our Harvest festivals. These we welcome, though they are closer to the plant world than to ours. Also I have seen some with the outward seeming of the Clansmen from whom I shrank as if from a blast of winter’s strongest cold.

A Wererider, like the forest people, possesses a mixture of inheritance, being sometimes man, sometimes animal. I had come across divers references to such shape-changes in the Chronicles Ursilla had supplied, but at the time I had had little interest to them. Now, because of Pergvin’s story, I wished that I had paid more heed to those old hints. For the tale of the Wereson who had used these weapons before me awoke a desire to know more. Had he also in those days felt between him and all others here the same invisible barrier that fed my growing loneliness?

Lonely I was, and turned inward upon my own thoughts more and more. Had it not been for Pergvin I would have fared even worse. But he companied me under the guise of teaching me a warrior’s ways. And, as the seasons passed, he took me on small journeys out from the Keep so that I learned more than just the fields and lands I could see in half a day’s riding. I knew though, that in this he was hampered by the rules of my mother, who would never allow me to spend a night away from the Keep.

I was still summoned to the Great Hall whenever court was held there—now sitting behind my uncle, as I had behind my mother. While Lord Erach was just to me after a fashion, he did not extend to me any great kindness. The fact that I could not hunt, that horse and hound hated me, gave him worry, I know. He went as far as to consult with Ursilla on the matter. What answer she made him I never learned. But the meeting led to a greater coolness in him toward me that was a source of unhappiness to me.

Maughus did not bully me openly as he had when I was a child, though he never lost any opportunity to point out my inability to fit neatly into the right pattern of Keep life. Often I found him watching me in such a way as to arouse within me an anger that was partly fear—not truly fear of Maughus himself, but of some formless thing that he might summon in time to my betrayal.

I had passed from boyhood into the time of young manhood when we had an extremely plentiful harvest that overjoyed us all. Yet that was also the Year of the Werewolf, which was an ill sign in every way and which in a measure we dreaded. By rights, this season should have celebrated my wedding to Thaney. Only, under such a sign, Ursilla decided—and Heroise, in spite of her desire to further her plans, backed her—no such uniting could prosper. Thus it was decreed that with the coming of the new year—which lay under the sign of the Horned Cat, a powerful one but such as promised better, the wedding would take place.

Of Thaney I had seen little, since she had gone early to Garth Howel, where the Wise Women gathered, there to learn such sorceries as those of healing and the protection of house and home. It was reported that she showed something of a talent in such matters, which did not, I knew, altogether suit my Lady Mother. Yet, by custom, Heroise could not raise her voice against the furthering of any development of such in her niece.

Maughus was much away also, acting as messenger for his father in various meetings of the Clan or Clans—for all four of the Great Clans were astir.

Arvon itself had passed into a period of unrest which crept upon the land subtly enough. The very names of the years, as they passed, showed that the balance of the Power was a little troubled. For we had behind us such as the Years of the Lamia, the Chimera, the Harpy and the Orc. There were signs that the golden peace of my childhood was fading, though the why of this puzzled all who thought about the matter. And there were embassies sent to the Voices, asking for readings on the future. That this grew cloudier they admitted. Still there was no menace that was openly discernible, upon which men could set their eyes and say—this is what troubles us so.

Pergvin summed the matter up one evening as we sat together over our evening meal.

“It is like the sea tides, this flow and ebb of the Power. When too much of it fills the land, then there is trouble and restlessness.” He stared moodily into the tankard of our last year’s cider. “It begins so always, too—with the land bearing in great abundance, as if we were being warned to fill up all storage places in preparation for a siege. While in us there gathers an uneasiness of spirit, as if there were a whispering in our ears, urging us to action we do not want to take. So the Shadow comes—as the sea tides—yet not so often—”

“Sea tides?” I caught eagerly upon the two words he had repeated. “Pergvin, have you then seen the sea?”

Still he did not raise his eyes to meet mine. Instead he asked a question in turn.

“My Lord, how many years of life think you stretch behind me?”

When I had been young enough to first come under his tutoring, I had thought him old. But, as my own years mounted up, I had guessed him to be of middle life. Age in the people of Arvon was hard to count until they reached near the end of a long, long span of years. Men could die of certain sicknesses, or baneful curses, and in battle. However, natural death and the lessening of vigor, held off a long time from us.

“I do not know,” I answered truthfully.

“I was one of those who took the Road of Memory through the Waste in the Dales,” he said slowly. “The Great time of Trouble, I knew, and what followed it. Yes, I saw the sea, for I was born within sound of its never-ceasing waves.”

The same awe that I held for Ursilla touched me now. It was as if some hero from the Chronicles had stepped from the parchment rolls to front me. That Pergvin could remember the Exile from the South was such a marvel.

“I remember too much,” he said harshly and drank his cider. Such was his air of withdrawal, I dared ask no more.

Then there was an interruption to our evening. A horn cried beyond the Keep Gate, and we recognized its summons as that which announced the arrival of a wandering merchant trader—doubtless come to set up a booth at our Harvest festival. Our welcome to the man who rode within was warm and ready, for traders were widely traveled men who brought with them much knowledge of places our own people seldom if ever saw.

Our visitor was plainly a man of high standing among his fellows, for he did not lead a single packhorse. Instead, he commanded a party with several outriders and a number of goods-carrying animals, among them not only the horses we knew, but several stranger beasts that were long of leg and whose bodies were humped upon the back so that the packs hung lashed on either side of the lump.

By Lord Erach’s order the nearer paddock outside the walls was assigned for a camping space, and there the men of the trader’s caravan quickly set up a picket line for the beasts, separating the horses from the humped ones, and then tents. Their master was pleased to accept the hospitality of the Keep and a seat at our table for the night meal, with the ladies and their waiting women, eager also to hear any news, occupying their feast chairs.

He was not a tall man, the trader, who introduced himself as one Ibycus (a name that had a new ring, not akin to any we knew). However, though he lacked inches perhaps, he did not lack presence. His manner was easy, with all the polish of a high House, the air of command upon him as surely as it rested on my uncle.

The longer I watched him, the less I believed he was one of our own folk. In spite of his youthful appearance (for in his outward seeming he might as well count not many more years than did Maughus who had not yet returned from his last mission), Ibycus gave a deeper impression of not only age, but of wisdom well controlled. I was led to wonder if he were not perhaps more than trader, perhaps some one of the Wise Ones using his present employment as a useful cloak.

If that was the truth, he was one favorable to us, for there was a lightsome, happy feeling to our dining. The shadow, that always seemed to me to hang within the Keep, was for a time dispelled. We listened to his flow of talk, and he had much to say of the lands he had recently passed through, giving several personal messages from our kin and accounts of how it fared within their holds.

At first I watched him only. Then, as if by chance, I caught sight of Ursilla and the expression that lay on her features. That she had come to meet our guest was a concession on her part, for she seldom visited the Great Hall, keeping to her own chambers. And now—

Yes, there was an uneasiness about her as she watched and listened, as if in this stranger she saw some faint menace. I was sure I saw her fingers move once or twice in a complicated gesture half-hidden by her plate. She might be bringing to bear the seeking of her sorcery to uncover some danger. Yet if that was what she sought, I knew suddenly that she failed. And her failure in turn was a rising source of dismay within her.

It was when the table was cleared that the trader summoned one of his men to bring in a stout chest. After it had been set down before him, he slapped its lid with his open palm, saying, “Wares have I in plenty, my lords and ladies. But the pick of what I carry lies here. With your goodwill, I shall make a show of them.”

Eagerly the ladies urged him to do so, their voices rising shriller above the deeper voices of the men who were not backward in such encouragement either. And the chest was opened.

From it Ibycus brought out first a length of cloth, black and much folded. This he spread out and smoothed upon the board before he lifted out divers small bags and boxes, some of silk, some of wood, others of carved bone or crystal. From each he shook its contents, to be flattened out upon the cloth in a display of such wealth I had not believed existed outside some ancient tale of a Firedrake’s treasure horde.

There was gold there and moon silver, even the ruddy copper, wrought into very ancient settings for gems. And of the gems—I do not think any of us looking upon that show could have named near the half of them.

We were silent, as if we all at one time together held our breath. Then came cries of astonishment. Also, those farther away left their seats and crowded closer, to feast their eyes on all the brilliant glitter. None stretched forth a hand, a finger, to touch. The display was too overpowering. We must all have had the feeling that it was too rich for our owning, that we must look, but we could not hope to possess.

I was one of those who had moved closer, bedazzled by all that lay there. Then somehow my eyes made a choice, and I centered my gaze on the article that lay closest to me.

It was a belt made of golden fur, so sleek and gleaming that, even among the riches heaped about it, the fur retained a brilliance, or so it seemed to me. The clasp was a single large gem—yellow-brown in shade—the like of which I had never seen. The gem had been wrought into the likeness of a cat’s head. Still, studying the buckle much closer, I saw that the cat was not intended to resemble a small, tamed one, but perhaps one that was akin to the dreaded hunter of the heights, the snow cat—more deadly a fighter than any other beast we knew.

“This interests you, Lord Kethan?”

At that moment it did not seem strange that Ibycus addressed me by name, or that he stood beside me. The others were intent still upon what lay there, and now they were venturing to touch this piece or that, all talking at-once about their preferences.

But it was the trader himself who took up the belt and held it out to me.

“A goodly piece of workmanship, my Lord. The clasp—it is a jargoon, a stone that is of the more common sort. But it has been most cunningly cut by one who knows the art well.”

“And the skin?” something prompted me to ask.

“The skin—ah, that is of the pard. One sees them seldom nowadays. They are as fearsome hunters as their cousins of the snow—though somewhat smaller.”

My fingers itched to take the belt from his grasp. At the same time my will denied that gesture, for I had the belief that if I did I could never relinquish it again. And I had no wealth with which to make it my own.

Ibycus smiled and nodded, as if he had asked some question and had it answered. Then he turned to answer some question Lord Erach called to him.

But I drew back, out of the circle of light about the table, away from the Great Hall itself. For the fierce longing that was in me to possess the belt was such that I was frightened at my own wavering control. Thus I stood in the dark, wondering if it were such a madness as this that forced a man to thievery.