1
In rumor and strange sayings
the truth
will hide.
Snow will fall, the heart freeze over.
We will come when no one expects us.
will hide.
Snow will fall, the heart freeze over.
We will come when no one expects us.
Apocalypse of Tamar
TWO MEN SAT ON A BENCH ON
THE ICE.
Between them a brazier glowed with hot coals, its
metal feet sinking into a pool of meltwater.
They sat silent, in the heart of the Frost Fair;
in its racket of bleating sheep, barking dogs, innumerable traders
calling their wares and, above all, the ominous hammering. Meats
sizzled on spits, babies screamed, jugglers threw jingling bells,
fiddlers played for coins, and in cushioned booths Sekoi of all
colors told spellbinding stories, their voices unnaturally sharp
and ringing in the bitter cold.
Finally the older man stirred. “Are you sure?” he
muttered.
“I heard it in Tarkos. Then again last week in
Lariminier Market. It’s certain.” The cobbler, still in his leather
apron, stared bleakly out at the black Watchtower in the center of
the frozen lake, as if afraid its sentinels could hear him from
there.
“He’s been seen?”
“So they say.” The cobbler’s dirty heel scratched
at a fish skeleton frozen in the ice; its wide eye stared up at
him. “There’s been a lot of talk. Prophecies and odd rumors. What I
heard was, that on Flainsnight last year there was an enormous
explosion. The House of Trees split wide and out of it, on black
wings, a vision rose up into the sky, huge over Tasceron.” He
glanced around, making the sign of honor furtively with his hand.
“It was him. The Crow.”
The old man spat. “Incredible! What did it look
like?”
“Huge. Black. A bird and not a bird. You know,
like it said in the old Book.”
“I might. And it spoke?”
“So the woman who told me said.”
A scar-bull clattered by pulled by two men, its
hooves slipping on the glassy lake. When they had gone the old man
shrugged. “Could be just rumor.”
The cobbler glanced around, worried. Behind them a
peddler was hawking ribbons and pins and fancy lace, a crowd was
watching two men come to blows over the price of geese, and a boy
was turning cartwheels among the stalls, a few coppers in his cap
on the ice. The cobbler drew up closer and dropped his voice. “No.
Why do you think the Watch have doubled their patrols? They’ve
heard; they have spies everywhere.”
“So what did it say, this vision?”
“It said, ‘Listen Anara, your
Makers are coming back to you; through the darkness and emptiness I
call them. Flain and Tamar and Soren, even Kest will come. They
will dispel the darkness. They will scatter the power of the
Watch.’”
The words, barely whispered, seemed dangerous,
charged with power, as if they sparked in the freezing air. In the
silence that followed, the racket of the fair seemed louder; both
men were glad of it. The peddler had spilled his tray and was
kneeling on the ice, picking up pins awkwardly with numb fingers.
The wind scuttered a few closer to the brazier, like silver
slivers.
The old man held gloved hands to the heat. “Well,
if it’s true . . .”
“It is.”
“. . . Then it will change the world. I pray I
live to see it.” He looked ruefully over the tents and stalls to
the Watchtower, glinting with frost. “But unless the Makers come
tomorrow, it’ll be too late for those poor souls.”
From here the hammering was louder. The
half-constructed gallows were black, a rickety structure of high
timbers built directly onto the ice, one man up there now on a
ladder, hauling up the deadly swinging nooses of rope. Above him
the sky was iron-gray, full of unfallen sleet. Smoke from the
fair’s fires rose into it, a hundred straight columns.
“Another black frost tonight,” the cobbler
muttered.
The old man didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “I
hear one of the prisoners is a keeper.”
The cobbler almost sat upright. Then he relapsed
onto the rough bench, biting his thumbnail. “Dear God,” he
whispered. “To hang?”
“To hang. Tomorrow, like all the rest.”
Over the lake the hammering ended abruptly. The
nooses swung, empty, frost already glinting on them.
The peddler picked up the last needle. He
straightened with a groan, then limped over. “Goods, gentlemen?” he
whined. “Samples of ribbon. Beads. Bright scarves. Something for
the wife?”
The cobbler shook his head sourly; the old man
smiled. “Dead, my friend. Long dead.”
“Ah, well.” The peddler was gray-haired; he eased
the crutch wearily under his arm. “Not even a brooch to put on your
coat?”
“Nothing. Not today.”
Indifferently, as if he was used to it, the
peddler shrugged. “It’s a raw day to walk down a long road,” he
said quietly.
They looked at him, bemused.
“Fellow’s drunk,” the cobbler muttered.
THE PEDDLER HOBBLED AWAY between tents and around a
pen of bleating sheep, their small hooves scratching the frozen
lake, down to the stall of a pastry-seller, where he bought a hot
pie and ate half of it, crouched by the heat of an open oven.
Grease scorched his fingers through the torn gloves. He bent
forward, his long gray hair swinging out of his hood, but as he
pulled himself slightly upright on the crutch a close watcher might
have glimpsed, just for an instant, that he was a tall man, and not
as old or as crippled as he seemed.
Someone squeezed in beside him. “Is that for
me?”
The peddler handed over the remains of the pie
without comment; the boy who had been cartwheeling wolfed it down
ravenously, barely stopping for breath.
The peddler’s eyes watched the crowd
intently.
“Well?”
“Nothing. I tried the password on a woman and she
told me to get lost or she’d call the Watch.” Raffi licked every
flake of pastry from his fingers, still uneasy at the memory.
“You?”
“Not our contact, no. But I overheard an
interesting conversation.”
“What about?”
“A certain black bird.”
Raffi stared up, alarmed. “Again?” He rubbed his
greasy hands nervously on his jerkin, then almost as a reflex
unfurled a sense-line and sent it out, but the noisy crowd made him
giddy with all their sensations and arguments and chatter; and
under them was only the impenetrable glass-blue barrier of the ice,
the vast lake frozen to its depths, the tiny creatures down there
sluggish, only half alive.
“Rumors are spreading,” Galen said grimly.
“Perhaps we have Alberic to thank. His people could never keep
secrets.” He glanced around. “Though such stories may be useful.
They’ll make people think. Stir their faith.”
Raffi rubbed his cold arms, frowning as the oven
door was slammed shut. Then he smiled. “What would they say if they
knew the Crow was right here?”
Galen’s rebuke struck him behind his eyes—a
mindflare—so that he winced. The keeper stepped closer, his gaunt
face hard. “Will you keep your mouth shut! Don’t talk to me unless
you have to. And stay close!”
He turned, pushing through the crowd. Eyes wet,
furious, Raffi glared after him.
They were both so tense they could barely talk
anymore. They had been at the fair since yesterday. Every hour they
spent here was a sickening danger; there were Watchmen everywhere,
and Raffi had been searched once already at a checkpoint. That
still made his skin crawl. But Galen wouldn’t go until the contact
came. And they had no idea who it would be.
All afternoon he tried to keep warm. The cold was
numbing. The stalls and awnings were brittle with ice; long, jagged
spikes of it that dripped for a few hours at midday and then
hardened again in the terrible nights, so that the whole fair was
encased in a glassy splendor, like the Castle of Halen must once
have been.
Despite himself, Raffi thought of Sarres. The hall
would be warm there; the Sekoi would be telling some story, with
the little girl, Felnia, curled up on its lap and Tallis, the
Guardian of the place, stoking the fire with logs. And Carys. What
would she be doing? He wanted to be back there so much that it
hurt.
Earlier, someone had thrown a few coppers to him;
now to ease his depression he spent it on a small slab of sticky
toffee. Twisting off a corner he sucked it with delight, trying not
to chew, to make the incredible sweetness last. It had been years
since he’d tasted anything like it. Five years. Since he’d left
home. He saw Galen watching him darkly across a pen of sheep, but
he didn’t care. Someone jogged his elbow, almost shoving him into
the pen.
“Sorry,” the woman said.
“It’s all right.” Raffi pocketed the toffee before
he dropped it.
She smiled at him. “Cold makes me clumsy. And it’s
a raw day to walk down a long road.”
He froze, swallowing the whole lump without
tasting it. He glanced at her sidelong; a big farm woman, fair hair
scraped back, a bold, red face. For a moment he had no idea what to
do; then he sent a sense-line snaking over to Galen, saw the
peddler’s head turn instantly, his hasty limping through the
crowd.
Raffi took a breath. “Not if there’s a warm
welcome at the end of it,” he managed.
Relief flickered in the woman’s eyes, brief but
unmistakable. “Is he here?” she muttered.
Raffi caught her arm. “Beads?” he said in a normal
voice. “Here’s your man.”
He dragged her over to Galen. Their eyes met; she
picked up objects from the tray at random, examining them.
“Thank God,” she whispered. “I thought I’d never
find you! We have to get home now, while the place is empty.”
Galen glanced around; Raffi knew he was wary of a
trap.
“How far?”
“Three miles. Over the hill. I have a cart outside
the west checkpoint.”
“Then we go separately. Different exits. Meet
outside.”
The woman nodded. She looked resolute.
“What’s your name?” Galen asked quietly.
“Caxton, Majella Caxton. You will come?”
“Have faith, woman. We won’t fail you.”
Dumping the lace, she strode away. Galen watched
her, then said, “Go ahead of me. No contact, whatever
happens.”
THERE WAS A LINE AT THE CHECKPOINT. All the
entrances to the fair were thronged, because the Watch took a third
of all profits, or more if they disliked your face, and everyone
had to be checked in and out.
Raffi folded back his sleeve. This was the worst
part. Despite the cold, he was sweating.
“Next!”
He crossed to the table and showed the number
painted on his wrist. The Watchman perched there flicked through
his list. Glancing back, Raffi saw Galen among a group of men
carrying wool-bales.
“Canver. Michael?”
He nodded.
“Performer. Ha, I know what that means.
Pickpocket. Beggar.”
“No!” Terrified, Raffi looked up. “I tumble,
juggle.”
“With what?”
“Apples.”
“So where are they?”
He shrugged. “I ate them.”
“You must think I was born yesterday.” The
Watchman was young, with a cruel, thin mouth. “Turn out your
pockets,” he said.
Raffi hadn’t expected this. After all, he had no
profits. But if they even suspected he was a thief he would lose a
hand, and the thought of that made him turn cold.
He dumped two small coins and the toffee.
“Is that it?” The Watchman grinned. “Come
here.”
The search was quick, but thorough. It left him
hot with fear and embarrassment, and it found nothing. The
Watchman’s snort was derisory. “Hardly worth your coming, was it?”
He scooped up the toffee and shoved it into his own pocket. “Now
get lost.”
Trembling with anger and relief, Raffi
turned.
He had only taken two steps when the man said,
“Wait.”
Raffi stopped. His heart thudded like a
hammerbird. Slowly he turned; the Watchman smiled coldly, arrogant
on the slippery ice. He had a different list in his hand. Glancing
down at it again he muttered, “Come back here.”