Crowchanger (Changers of Chandris) Page 15

  Towards the end of their journey, Adwen had been showing more of an interest in the local girls than she liked and she had taken pains to introduce him to the appropriate pages in the herbal. Bastards in most of Chandris’s villages were known as ‘changers’ children,’ their fathers having flown and left them. Adwen had taken her instruction on such matters with a smile and a joke, but Sylas would be another matter. As far as she knew, Sylas was only interested in male partners, but she couldn’t afford to take any chances. Probably leaving a marker in the herbal for him to find would be her best option, she reflected, watching her apprentice ripping meat from bone and licking the grease from his fingers.

  “We head into the uplands tomorrow. Are you ready?”

  He nodded. “I want to see a forest. Wood is so scarce in the desert. I want to see trees and trees and trees as far as I can see, like Casian told me about.”

  “I think we can manage that.” She tipped her head to one side to consider him. “You know we will most likely see upland Chesammos while we are there.”

  “They work in the fields. Master Jesely told me that. The upland Chesammos and the desert Chesammos have become sundered. Once we were all one race, each working according to their skill and receiving according to their need. The Irenthi changed all that, and now the uplanders and the desert dwellers might as well be different races.”

  He was matter-of-fact, but had an air of sadness. The Chesammos had once owned the whole island. She was not sure how their systems had worked, but he was not the first who had told her of this means of providing for everyone—a far cry from the way things were now. The Chesammos were free people who might as well be slaves, as it stood. In the lands she had visited where slavery was legal, slaves were a valuable commodity. They were well-kept, fed and clothed. The average slave lived in better conditions than many of the desert Chesammos. No wonder they had heard rumours of rebellion as they had travelled the island. Sylas had not mentioned them, but she wondered how much of it he had taken in—whether he sympathised with what they were trying to achieve. He was safer with her than among his own people, at any rate. Healers were respected; changer healers doubly so.

  At least the lad seemed happy to be travelling. Chandris was not large, but it had a stunning variety of environments. From the desert of the south to the rainforests in the north, and the mountain range that formed the island’s spine, she planned to visit them all. Ayriene had been stunned to discover how little Sylas knew of the island on which he lived. He knew only the area close to Namopaia, the Aerie, and the route he had to take between them. He had only seen the sea from a distance; he had never seen a forest, or a farm, or any of the other things Ayriene took so much for granted. It gave her pleasure, showing him this small part of the world and witnessing his wonder at what it contained.

  “So long as you know,” she said. “We will head north and east tomorrow and we should be in Redlyn the day after. Now, suppose you show me how you’ll make that imanha moss salve?”

  He grinned, taking a jar of oil from his pack and setting a small pot in the embers of the fire. The boy had a sure way about him, and he picked things up quickly. He was not Adwen—would never take Adwen’s place—but she had to admit it was good to have company by the fire of an evening. She settled down to watch him set the oil infusing.

  Sylas thought he was prepared for what he was to see in Redlyn, but when it came to it he was not. The Chesammos there looked a lot like him and had the distinctive build of his race, but there the similarity stopped.

  If he had stopped to think, he would have realised that they would not live in ash brick huts. Just as wood was a prized commodity in the desert, so was brick elsewhere, used mainly for the castles and mansions of the wealthy. These Chesammos lived in houses of wood and willow, thatch and skins, as did the Irmos, of whom there were many. They wore Irenthi-style clothing, although in fabrics much less fine than any Irenthi would be seen wearing.

  But what surprised him most were the earrings. The menfolk still wore the twisted wire and bead, but some wore them in both ears, not just one. The women wore them, too: simple affairs so as not to get in the way while working, but no woman would have worn an ear wire in the desert. Most shocking of all was the bead. A few wore linandra, but many more wore beads of other colours—a pink coral here, a clear quartz there—of the sort worn by Irmos for decoration. The custom of piercing had been kept after the sundering of the desert Chesammos and the uplanders, but the ritual importance of the wire and its bead had been lost.

  Ayriene tugged at his sleeve. “You’re staring,” she warned him. And he was, but they stared back. He had stubbornly clung to his old clothes, loose-fitting, bound at wrists and ankles to keep out ash. And he was the only grown man without the ear wire. That was enough to set him apart in any Chesammos settlement.

  A man approached, a few years older than Sylas, but taller. Looking round, Sylas saw that this man was far from the tallest. Better diet and fresher air made these uplanders thrive, it seemed.

  “Welcome, healer. Cousin. My name is Erlach,” he said, giving Ayriene a respectful bow, deeper than those accorded even the Irenthi in the south. He made the sign of the Lady to Sylas, joining thumb and fingertips and raising his index fingers to his lips. Sylas returned the salute, grateful that this, at least, was the same as at home. “We have been looking forward to your visit, healer. We have our own herbalist here, but she anticipates learning much from you. And we have a young man with a broken arm which has not healed, and one with a knife gash that has become infected. Both injured while gathering the fruit and nut crops.”

  Erlach had none of the accent Sylas was used to. From his voice he could have been Irmos, or even Irenthi at a push. Looking around, he saw many dark Irmos children playing in the streets, even some with fairer skins. In the desert, his people clung to the old ways, told the old stories, preserved their bloodlines. Here, with the prospect of a better life for those with some Irenthi blood in their veins, the preservation urge did not run as deep. Within two, maybe three generations, he estimated, there would be few people left here who could claim pure Chesammos blood.

  Sylas shifted to Chesammos to ask their host if there were anywhere they could wash, any food and water to be had after their journey. He was aware of Ayriene’s eyes narrowing and wondered if he had given offence. The man laughed nervously.

  “If I understood you correctly, my house is at your disposal. You will find fresh water and food there, and beds, if you need to rest after your journey.” Erlach replied in fluent Irenthi, then flushed when he saw Sylas’s expression. “My Chesammos is rusty, I am afraid, and I would be embarrassed to try in front of one who obviously speaks it well. We rarely use the language now, even amongst ourselves. My parents both speak it, if you wish to converse in your own tongue.”

  Sylas’s spirits fell. He had thought at least to speak a little Chesammos here, but the young man slapped him across the shoulders.

  “When you have rested maybe we can speak a while, cousin. I would like to hear of the southlands and how you fare there. I hear there are… changes afoot.” Erlach cast a cautious glance at Ayriene, but she was making a good attempt at seeming not to hear. “There will be a gathering in your honour tonight.”

  “Wrestling?” Sylas could not keep the eagerness from his voice. “Will there be wrestling? I am out of practice, but I am accounted good in my village. I would love to try my skills against some of your men.”

  Erlach moistened his lips. “Wrestling? Why… no. Not tonight. We rarely wrestle now, if truth be told, but if you enjoy sports we have a game I can show you. I will need some of my friends to come back from the fields, but we can teach you, if you wish. The rules take time to explain, but I’m sure you will pick it up.”

  Sylas smiled in what he hoped was a polite fashion. The beauty of wrestling was that you could practice any time, a
s long as you could find a man willing to be your opponent. But having to gather a group—and rules! How many rules could a game need?

  “I think maybe I shall rest a while. On reflection, I am tired after our long walk.”

  Erlach brought his face closer to Sylas’s and whispered urgently. “I must see you alone. I hear that Chesammos plan to rise up against the Irenthi. That they gather weapons.”

  “Here?” Sylas checked over his shoulder in case they could be overheard. “You have weapons here?”

  Erlach looked aghast. “No, not here. We are a small community, as you see, integrated with the Irmos. There is little revolutionary spirit in this village. But one of the villages to the south of here will join, I believe. I only hope the rest of us will not be drawn into your conflicts. It cannot end well.”

  He showed Sylas and Ayriene to the small dwelling that had been prepared for them. They washed and lay down on their first proper beds in many days. Sylas stared at the ceiling. Sleep would not come, despite his tiredness. This place was not Chesammos: not as he knew it. But then his own people were leaving the old ways, in a far more radical way than these villagers. Weapons? He could hardly picture Chesammos men armed with daggers and knives and spears. His mind recoiled from it.

  Chandris was hard for Chesammos—had always been hard. But now it was no longer safe.

  They spent several days at Erlach’s village so that Ayriene could monitor the progress of her two more serious patients and spend time with the village healer. Not only did she have new remedies to explain, but she left a few of her precious seeds to try to establish the new plants in Chandris. Once there were patches in strategically placed villages, she hoped, the wind and the birds would spread them farther.

  Sylas became more uncomfortable as time passed. He found it hard to express, but being around people so obviously Chesammos in a village so alien to him was a disorientating experience, and their Irenthi dress and speech and manners only made it worse. By the third village he knew what it was.

  He was homesick.

  Ayriene continued to teach him as they moved between the villages. His most recent lesson had been on kaba sap, a deadly poison to Chesammos and Irmos, but which would merely cause Irenthi a severe stomach upset before they recovered completely. A bizarre substance, Sylas thought, that would differentiate its effects between races. Something different in their blood, Ayriene speculated, or in how their bodies reacted. Either way, the Irenthi had the good fortune to survive it, although the effects were bad enough they might wish for death before they recovered.

  From there she took him on to the importance of making potions, tisanes, and tinctures up to the correct strength. It was not enough to know the correct plant or part of a plant to use for a remedy, she stressed. Sometimes quantities were important too, and this was where the goodwife who grew herbs in her garden for their healing properties sometimes made fatal mistakes.

  “Did you know that a tea of gethenee leaves is poisonous in large quantities, or if prepared incorrectly, but a weak tincture can restart a stopped heart? Something can be good for you in small doses, yet damaging if you take too much.” She looked straight at him when she said that, and Sylas wondered if she were trying to tell him something. Was Casian a poison, did she think? Was it safe for Sylas to see him occasionally, but damaging if he saw him too often? Or was he reading too much into a seemingly innocent observation?

  Mulling over these uncomfortable ideas made him slip deeper and deeper into one of his dark spells. By the fifth village Ayriene was struggling to get any conversation out of him. He walked resolutely, head down as if on some marathon trek, and when they worked he scarcely spoke except to confirm instructions or check that he was making up a remedy correctly. More and more she was allowing him to make decisions, offering suggestions and stopping him if he went drastically wrong, which he rarely did, but letting him be a healer in fact as well as in name.

  Finally, as they sat resting with tea brewing in a pot over the fire, rolling strips of torn linen for bandages, she turned to him.

  “Are you all right? You’ve been moody these last few days. I know young people can be that way sometimes, but it’s not like you. Is there anything I should know?”

  “I’m fine.” He rolled bandages as if it were the most important task of his life, resolutely watching his hands moving and not meeting her eyes.

  “I’m not going to try to be your mother, because I’m not, but if there is something amiss I need you to tell me. If anything is troubling you—something about your studies, or if you’ve decided healing isn’t for you or…” She stopped and studied him for a moment as if something had occurred to her. “You didn’t meet someone, did you? Back in one of the villages? I mean—it would be understandable. I don’t know if you would fit in here in the uplands—from what you’ve said, things are very different here—but we could go back and you could talk to him. Or her. Whichever.”

  He sighed and put down the neatly rolled material. Lifting the pot from the fire, he poured two cups of the steaming tea and handed one to Ayriene. Just for an instant he made eye contact and the genuine concern in her face touched him.

  “It’s nothing like that. But being around Chesammos—even ones who aren’t like me—made me realise how much I miss my family. Well, my mother at least, and my sister. She has been married a few months now. She might be pregnant, for all I know.”

  Ayriene packed the bandages into her healer pouch and checked the pots and vials, making notes of supplies that were running low.

  “I ordered some flowers and seeds harvested and dried for me, and by my reckoning they should be coming into season round about now, so with drying time and shipping they should be in Adamantara in two or three weeks. The merchants will hold them for me, so I don’t need to be there the day they arrive. I was going to stay in Adamantara once the supplies are on their way to the Aerie—there’s always plenty of call for a healer with the ships in and out—but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go to the desert for a while instead. I’ll fly to the Aerie for a day or two to make sure the healers there know how to use the new supplies. If you stay in Adamantara, that will be quicker than us both walking there—even quicker than riding in the wagon. Then we can carry on into the desert.”

  It felt as though a weight had lifted from his shoulders. “Thank you, Mistress. The men of the villages have told me dreadful things about the south planning rebellion, although the Lady knows how stories have spread so far. I would like to see for myself what is happening. Maybe I can help my family if things are getting bad.” Would the Aerie take his mother in, if he pleaded her case? She was a good weaver; she could weave for her keep. Or cook. Or clean.

  The news he had heard in the second village, of an attack on Lucranne by a party of Chesammos, preyed on his mind. Most of the desert fell into Lucranne’s holding and Garvan had always been a fair holder. The villagers had not been able to tell Sylas the outcome of the attack, except that the perpetrators had been executed. But if any harm had come to Lord Garvan, then Casian was lord holder now. And if any harm had come to Casian… His stomach clenched. If harm had come to Casian surely he would have known.

  He had to admit to himself that it was not only his family he missed. Deep inside he yearned to see Casian again. Even enduring his taunts would be preferable to not seeing him at all. He wondered if Casian missed him, too.

  “There is something else, Mistress.”

  She regarded him silently.

  “When I agreed to become your apprentice, you said you would help me learn to fly. Would you train me? Then if I needed to see my family, I could go to them without us having to completely change our route.” He bit his lip. Not entirely the truth. What he wanted was to fly to the Aerie, to Lucranne, to wherever Casian was. The excitement of leaving with a new mistress, of learning new skills—that had overridden the pain
of leaving Casian, at least at first. But it was there now, in his chest: a dull ache like the pain of bereavement, reminding him of what he had left behind. He wanted to ask to go to the Aerie with her when she went, but who knew if Casian was even there? He had been disenchanted enough when Sylas last saw him to have quit the place for good. And she was right; she would move faster without him.

  “You know why healers rarely fly?” she asked him.

  He nodded. “Because we have packs of supplies too heavy for a bird to carry, and too precious to be left behind. And because it is tiring, and we owe it to those who need our care to be as rested and healthy as we can, lest we misdiagnose them or do not treat them to the best of our ability.” It was the unofficial creed of the healer. “But I would not do it often, Mistress, and when we return to the Aerie you know Master Donmar will ask if I have made any progress. If I have not, might they not forbid you to have me as your apprentice, when there are so many promising young changers who might benefit from your tutelage?”