“Is it true that you back King Orden? Will you fight beside him?”
Binnesman gave the Wolf Lord a sidelong glance, shook his head as if appalled. “I do not wish to fight you,” Binnesman intoned softly. “I have never taken a man's life. You are asleep to the powers of the earth, Raj Ahten. The great tree of life arches over you, and the leaves of it whisper to you, but you do not hear them rustle. Instead, you merely sleep among its roots, dreaming of conquest.
“Turn your thoughts to preservation. Your people need you. I have great hope for you, Raj Ahten. I would call you friend.”
Raj Ahten studied the old wizard a moment. “What would it take for you and I to become friends?”
Binnesman said, “Swear an oath to the earth, that you will not harm it. Swear that you will seek to preserve a seed of humanity in the dark season to come.”
“And what do you mean by these oaths?” Raj Ahten asked.
“Divest yourself of the flameweavers who desire to consume the earth. Value life—all life, plant and animal. Eat from plants without destroying them, harvest only the animals you need. Waste no creature, either animal or man. Turn your armies back from this war you have initiated. There are reavers on your southern borders. Your struggle should be with them.”
For a long time, Raj Ahten sat on the throne, simply staring at Binnesman. During that moment, a servant rushed in with a fresh lantern from the anteroom, so that it illuminated the Wolf Lord's face. He appeared thoughtful.
Iome could see the longing in Raj Ahten's eyes, and almost she believed he would take the oath.
But as the servant drew near with the lantern, it seemed to Iome that Raj Ahten's resolve flickered like the tongues of the fire. “I swear, to protect mankind from the reavers—for their own good,” Raj Ahten said. “I...do only what I know I must—”
“You do nothing of the sort!” Binnesman shouted. “Listen to you: You've taken so many endowments of Voice that when you talk, you convince yourself of your own mad arguments. You are deluded!”
Iome's heart pounded, for she suddenly realized that Binnesman was right. Raj Ahten was swayed by the sound of his own mad Voice. It had never occurred to her that such a thing might happen.
Binnesman shouted, “Yet—there is time to change your mind—barely! Divest yourself of these mad notions. Don't dare rob these people and call yourself good!”
He turned and ambled from the room, looking every bit the bent old man. Yet he walked without fear, as if, Iome thought, he had conducted the interview, as if he had dragged Raj Ahten to this room in chains.
Then he was gone.
Iome watched in astonishment, for no one else that night had merely chosen to leave Raj Ahten's presence. Iome feared that Raj Ahten might try to imprison the old man, or drag him back and bully him into service.
But the Wolf Lord remained thoughtful, watched the dark corridor through which Binnesman had exited.
Moments later, as the flameweavers began to regain consciousness, a guard hurried to the King's chamber to announce that the herbalist had just been spotted outside the city gates, hobbling across the fields to the Dunnwood. “Our bowmen on the wall could have shot him,” the guard said, “but we did not know your will in this matter. The nomen are camped in the fields, but none detained him. Shall I send scouts to fetch him back?”
Raj Ahten frowned. It seemed far too short a time for a man to have left these halls and escaped the castle. And it was equally as bizarre that none of Raj Ahten's highly trained soldiers had stopped the old man.
“Did he reach the edge of the forest?” Raj Ahten asked.
“Aye, milord.”
“What is he planning?” Raj Ahten wondered aloud. He stood swiftly, pondering. Then added, “Send a party of hunters to find him—if they can.”
But Iome knew it was too late. Binnesman had gained the woods, the Dunnwood, the ancient forest, a focus for the earth powers. Even Raj Ahten's most accomplished hunters could not track an Earth Warden through the Dunnwood.
15
Poetics
Once the trackers left, Gaborn made his way alongside the mill, carrying Rowan. For a young man with three endowments of brawn, she did not pose much of a burden, and Gaborn realized that carrying her now offered an added benefit: she would not leave her scent on the ground.
It is hard to track a man who has just left a river. His body oils get washed away, so that when he steps on dry land, he is harder to smell. Gaborn wanted to leave only his small traces of scent.
As he struggled up the incline, out of the millrace, the ferrin saw him coming, growled in fear, and scurried for cover.
“Food, food,” he whistled, for these creatures had performed him a service. How great a service, they would never know. Gaborn had little food to give, but as he reached the mill, he lifted the wooden latch on the front door, went in. A hopper above the grindstones was filled with wheat. Gaborn opened the hopper, turned to look behind him. The ferrin stood just outside the door, eyes wide in the darkness. One little gray-brown ferrin woman was wringing her paws nervously, sniffing the air.
“Food. I give,” he whistled softly.
“I hear you,” she chirped in return.
Gaborn slowly walked past them, left the ferrin just outside the door. They waited, blinking at him nervously, afraid to enter the mill with him watching.
Gaborn hurried up the trail to the castle, under the trees, then crept along the tree line until he reached the small stream that wound through the pussy willows.
Here, he slogged through the marshes quietly. The sky was red on the hill now, and the archer on the city wall stood out bright against the sky. He was watching the fire, Binnesman's garden burning. Ashes drifted slowly through the air.
Gaborn crept through the willows, up to the city wall, unseen. At the wall, he set Rowan down and squirmed under first, through the cold water, then waited for Rowan. She wriggled beneath the wall, teeth gritted in pain at the touch of the icy water. She staggered up to her knees, inside the castle gate, then pitched forward in a faint.
He caught her, laid her in the grass beside the stream. He took off his dirty cloak, wrapped it around her for what little warmth it could give, then began making his way through the streets.
It was an odd sensation, walking that street. Binnesman's garden was afire, the flames shooting now eighty feet into the air. The castle was alive with people shouting, running to and fro, afraid the fire would spread.
On the street leading to the stables, dozens of people raced past Gaborn, many of them carrying buckets to the stream so that they could douse the thatch roofs of cottages, protecting them from falling cinders.
Yet of all the people who passed Gaborn, none asked his name or sought to learn why he carried an unconscious woman. Is Earth protecting me, he wondered, or is this such a common sight this night that no one notices?
Gaborn found the spice cellars from Rowan's description. It was a fair-sized building, something of a warehouse whose back was dug into the hill. A loading dock by the wide front doors was just the height of a wagon.
Gaborn cautiously opened the front door into an antechamber. The scents of spices assailed him—drying garlic and onions, parsley and basil, lemon balm and mint, geranium, witch hazel, and a hundred others. The cook's son was supposed to be sleeping here. A pallet lay in a corner with a blanket over it, but Gaborn saw no sign of the boy. On a night like tonight, with soldiers in town and a huge fire burning, the boy was probably out watching the sights with friends.
A wall of stone and mortar stood on the far side of the antechamber. Gaborn carried Rowan to it, opened it wide. A huge chamber was behind the door. A lantern hung by the wall, burning low, next to a flask of oil and a couple of spare lanterns. Gaborn poured oil into a lantern and lit the wick so that it burned brightly, then gaped.