The Gifts of the Lady (story, part 1 of 2)

From: Erik Sieurin <BV9521_at_utb.hb.se>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 20:25:33 +0100


THE GIFTS OF THE LADY
or
What You Can Get For A Guilder.
A story from Western Dragon Pass by Erik Sieurin.

The clack whirled through the air, struck a bough on an elm, bounced back, bounced again on a large mossy boulder, and landed at the feet of the two young men.
- -That is what I call a bad omen, said the short one, and his voice
shuddered slightly.
- -On the contrary, replied his taller companion, it is a very good
omen.
The short young man, whose name, incidentally, was Selaff, looked incredulously on his taller partner, whose name was Lackso.
- -Please, Lackso, don't play Godi now. This is serious! When the Lady
of the Wild rejects an offering, can you call it anything else than a bad omen?
The taller man bent down and picked up the clack.
- - If we continue now, Selaff went on with a certain amount of anguish
in his voice, we won't get anything for our work, neither fish nor fowl nor beast. We might very well have an accident.
- -Yes, Lackso answered sharply, if we just continue on now without
remedying the situation. But see, the Lady is nothing but honest. She might be cruel and wild, but she keeps an honest bargain. He turned to his companion with that sort of eyes people have before their Initiation, a mixture of expectancy, pride and fear.
- -She rejected the clack - the traditional clack - because she has an
Opportunity for us. Something far more valuable than a single clack. Selaff sighed.
- -Please, Lackso, don't fool around!

Guilder for Goddess of Wildlands,
given to well-deserved creditor,
herdess of hare, deer and boar,
planter of pine, elm and oak.

Make the hunter's day worthwhile,
fill up the fisherman's nets,
guide carefully axe of the lumberjack,
brim-pack the berrier's basket.

While chanting he swirled around with closed eyes, quickly but without swaying. With the last words, he hurled the shining guilder into the woods. It whirled away and disappeared soundlessly into the dark underbrush.

They remained silent for a while, blushing as small boys. Then they both turned around and continued into the woods, up the trail which led to Mare Lake.

They followed the old custom of keeping the conversation away from their supposed luck, but keeping their thoughts away was nigh impossible, so they continuously skirted the subject. Never before did they stop so often to peer at saplings suitable for fishing-rods or dug up the dung left by wood-grazing cattle to see if there were any dungbeetle worms there. Never before did they stop so often because Selaff considered a place suitable for a snare, and never before did he change his mind so often after sniffing around the underbrush.

They stared silently at the at the ex-king of the forest for a while.
- -Well, added Lackso sheepishly, it looked like a roebuck to me.

They kept silent as Telmori (they thought) for the next mile or so, until the trail ended and they stood looking down a steep hill at Mare Lake. They had seen no game bigger than a blackbird, and for the last part of the mile they had stopped now and then to eat blueberries and scrutinize the forest closest to the trail for any track or spoor. There were some droppings here and half a paw there. but nothing new.
- -It was about time, said Lackso.

Selaff was ready with the simple shelter - no one had been there since spring, but they had left everything in good order - and very quickly found that he himself had made the nets so ready before he stuffed them into his pack, that he just had to unpack them. Despite all their sapling-scrutiny, no rods had been cut. For the moment, he thus stood peering out into the dusk, and fretted about Lackso not returning yet. Suddenly there was a very bad imitation of a weedbill's squeak on the eastern shore of the lake. Selaff squeaked back (with a voice that might possibly have fooled a _real_ weedbill) and set off into the brush surrounding the small lake.

He found Lackso peering at the ground and almost jumping up and down with nervosity.
- -What is it, Selaff hiss. Deer?

They followed the trail nervously and quitely for half an hour. There were clear tracks most of the way, and some small dunghills now and then, so despite that night had fallen it wasn't that hard following it. Usually, Lackso had his nose and eyes down in the earth, while Selaff peered cautiously into the wood. Then came the first shriek. It shocked them both, and Lackso almost turned tail and run, but it was over as soon as it ended. It was something between a neigh and a roar, and it might have been near or far, but it certainly was in the direction of the trail.
- -What the Storm was that? Lackso hissed.

Selaff patted Lackso and the back, and they both stood up and listened to the sound of approaching hooves clappering against moss-covered rock and fallen logs, because they had now entered a part of the forest against which Umath bore some kind of grudge and fallen trees were everywhere.
Into the clearing before them galloped their prey, shaggy and sweaty, with his human upper body almost as hairy as his horse rear, and with sculpted copper breastplate and shining horseshoes of hardened bronze contrasting with the wild fetishes bound into his mane, tail and hair and the stripes and circles painted over his body in red, deep green and black.
It was a centaur, a horseman thing, and he half-whinnied, half-roared again when seeing them, and halted swiftly on a large rock before them.
And Lackso suddenly seemed to shine from within with an Understanding and leapt into the clearing shouting something Selaff hardly recognized as language, again and again, while the horseman curiously peered at him with large brown eyes.
- -What?! Selaff hissed.

Lackso spoke like a normal man again, first in Tradetalk, then in his mother tongue, gesturing heavily.
- -Yes, he said and grinned nervously trying to look friendly. We are of the
Lady! We are of the Lady!

END OF PART ONE


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