The Black Raven. Katharine Kerr
companion, who had died in the same fever that had killed another infant son. Zandro would, she hoped, be the last. She wondered how she was going to find the love and strength to deal with him, who would demand more of both than all the rest of them put together. Keeta must have been thinking along the same lines.
‘It’s not like you don’t have enough troubles on your mind already. What with Ebañy’s’ – a long pause – ‘illness.’
‘Oh, come right out and say it!’ Marka snapped. ‘He’s gone mad. We all know it. And now his youngest son is obviously mad, too. Why are we all being so coy? How would Ebañy put it? He’s demented, lunatic, deranged, insane –’ Tears overwhelmed her.
Marka was aware of Keeta getting up, then kneeling again next to her. She turned into her friend’s embrace and sobbed. Keeta stroked her hair with a huge hand.
‘There, there, little one. We’ll find a way to heal your husband yet. We’ll be playing in Myleton next. They have physicians and priests and the gods only know who else, and one of them will know what to do.’
‘Do you think so?’ Marka raised a tear-stained face. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘I have to. And so do you.’
The tears stopped. Marka sat back on her heels and wiped her face on the sleeve of her tunic. A sudden thought turned her cold.
‘Wait – where is Ebañy?’ Marka scrambled to her feet. ‘Here we are, on the coast, with the cliffs –’
‘I’ll stay here with the child.’
Marka ducked out of the tent, then stood blinking for a moment in the bright sunlight. Around her the camp spread out, a grand thing of white tents and painted wagons, the biggest travelling show that Bardek had ever seen. At the moment, however, the camp seemed curiously empty. Most of the performers had retired to their tents to sleep away the noon heat. Since she could see none of their animals, some of the men must have led them to the water trough by the public fountain, hidden from her sight by trees. Nowhere did Marka find Ebañy, but in the far view, at the edge of the caravanserai, between the palms and the plane trees, she could see the cliffs and distantly hear the sea, pounding on rocks below.
Marka trotted off, panting a little for breath in the hot sun. All those pregnancies had buried the slender girl acrobat somewhere deep inside a thick-waisted matron who had to bind up her heavy breasts for comfort’s sake. At those moments when she had the leisure to remember her younger self, Marka hated what she had become. Especially when she looked at her husband – as she hurried along the cliffs, she saw him at last, strolling along and singing to himself a good safe distance back from the edge. Her relief mingled with anger, that he could still look so young and so handsome, with his pale blond hair and his pale grey eyes, his pinkish-white skin just glazed with tan and as smooth as a young lad’s. When he saw her, he smiled and waved.
‘There you are, my love,’ he called out. ‘Do you have need of me for something?’
‘Oh, I was just wondering where you were.’
‘Enjoying this glorious day under the dome of the sky. The sea’s full of spirits, and so is the wind, and they’re all enjoying it with me.’
‘Ah. I see.’
Not of course that she did see the spirits teeming. He often spoke of spirits, as well as demons, portents, and visions, all of them invisible to everyone else. Still, she had to agree about the glory of this particular day, with the sea a winter-dark blue, scoured into white caps by the fresh wind.
‘I’ve been thinking about the show,’ Ebañy said. ‘I want to add something new to my displays, in the parts with the coloured lights. I’m just not sure what yet.’
‘It’ll come to you. I have faith.’
‘Well, so do I.’
They shared a smile. Hand in hand they walked back to the camp while he sang in the language of far-off Deverry.
‘A love song,’ he said abruptly. ‘For you, my beautiful darling.’
And he did love her, of that she was sure. Never in their years together had he spurned her, never had he amused himself with the young women who performed in the troupe, not even once, no matter how old and thick and worn she’d become. For that alone she would always love him, even though at times, such as now, when he studied her face with a strange intensity, she wondered what he was seeing when he looked at her.
With a squeal of delight Zandro came trotting to meet them. Keeta strolled after, shaking her head, as if to say that he was beyond her control. It was one of the strangest things about the boy, that he could walk as well as a much older child, yet not be able to form a single word.
‘Well!’ Marka pointed them out. ‘Look who’s coming.’
‘I see him, and a fine sight he is.’
When Marka said nothing, Ebañy paused to look at her.
‘You’re frowning,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘I’m just so worried about our Zan. He’s just not right. We can’t go on hiding it from ourselves. I mean, he should be talking more, and then –’
‘What? No, he’s fine for what he is. He’s a very young soul, just born for the first time. And he’s not human, truly. You can see it in his aura.’
He bent down and scooped the boy up. Laughing, Zandro buried his face in his father’s shoulder.
‘What do you mean, aura?’ Marka said.
‘Look for yourself.’ Ebañy waved his free hand around the boy’s head. ‘All the colours are wrong. What are you, my son? One of the Wildfolk, seeing what flesh feels like? Did you choose this, or did we trap you, my wife and I, when we were making a body for someone to wear?’
Marka felt her hands clenching into fists as if she could pummel his madness into silence. When Ebañy looked into Zandro’s eyes, the boy stared steadily back.
‘Not one of the Wildfolk,’ Ebañy said at last. ‘But some spirit whose time has come to be born. You’ve a lot to learn, my darling, but now the world is yours and all its marvels too.’
Carrying Zandro, Ebañy walked back toward their tent. Marka lingered, fighting back tears, until Keeta laid an enormous hand on her shoulder.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘It’s so sad.’
‘Yes.’ Marka wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘It came on so slowly, didn’t it? I wonder now how long he’s been this way, and I never would let myself notice.’
‘None of us wanted to notice. Don’t berate yourself.’
‘Thank you. When he’s not – well, when he’s not saying peculiar things, I can pretend that we still have our wonderful life. But then he’ll come out with something, like just now, and I don’t know what to say.’
‘There probably isn’t anything to say. Ah well, we’ll see what Myleton brings us.’
* * *
Wherever Ebañy walked, the Wildfolk went with him, sylph, sprite, and gnome, and in the water undines, rising up to beckon him into the waves. In the fires the salamanders played, rubbing their backs on the logs like cats, leaping up with the flames. At one time in his life he’d called himself Salamander, back in the land of his birth. That he did remember, though a great many other memories escaped him. The world teemed with visions that drove out the ordinary details, such as the names of the cities they visited and at times even the names of his wife and children. That they were his wife and children he never forgot.
At night when he slept, his dreams took him to strange worlds filled with stranger spirits. On purple seas he travelled in a barge while a sun of poison green hung at zenith. Enormous undines followed and held out long grey hands while they asked him questions in a language he’d never heard. Other nights