The Crow Read online

  Hem puffed his cheeks and blew out a big breath, as if trying to expel his morbid thoughts. There was Saliman, of course. Saliman was everything Hem would have liked to be himself: tall, handsome, strong, generous, brave, funny... Hem had adored him, with a passion akin to hero-worship, from the first time he had seen him. It had seemed like a miracle when Saliman had offered to be his guardian and to bring him to Turbansk, the great city of the south, to go to School there and learn how to be a Bard.

  Since he had first gained the Speech and had been able to speak to birds, Hem had dreamed of coming to the south, where – the birds had told him – grew trees full of bright fruits as big as his own head. And now, here he was. He lived in a grand Bardhouse with Saliman, and had as much to eat as he wanted, and dressed in fine clothes, rather than the rags he had been used to. But although he now sat in a tree surrounded by the sweet fruit he had once dreamed of, happiness seemed as far beyond him as ever.

  For one thing, coming to Turbansk had meant that he had to part from Maerad. The unfairness of this struck deep, although even at his most surly Hem knew it wasn't anyone's fault. And he had found that he didn't like the School much. He wasn't used to having to sit still and concentrate, and he took the criticisms of his mentors badly, however kindly they were given. They also insisted on calling him Cai, which was the name he had been given as a baby, before he had been kidnapped by Hulls and placed in the orphanage where he had spent most of his childhood. He constantly forgot that it was his name, so he kept getting into trouble for ignoring his teachers, when really he hadn't realized they were speaking to him.

  Hem brooded on the injustice of the Bards for a while, unconsciously plucking and eating another mango. It wasn't his fault that he didn't know anything. Nobody seemed to understand how hard reading and writing were for him, and when he stumbled over a word the scornful looks of the seven-year-olds with whom he did scripting classes scorched his pride.

  But the core of Hem's discontent was that he was lonely. Saliman, the only person in Turbansk he trusted, was often away, or occupied with Bard business. And these days Saliman was usually preoccupied, even when they did have time to speak together. Hem was the only northern child in the School, and his pale olive face stood out among the black-skinned Turbansk children, who thought him rough and strange. He was already a veteran of several fights, and now they avoided him because he fought dirtily: he had no qualms about gouging eyes or pulling hair or biting. He didn't speak the Suderain language, which limited his communications to the Speech, and (Hem considered with chagrin, throwing the huge mango stone so it rattled through the leaves) it was impossible to lie in the Speech; it twisted your words around. It was proving to be a real nuisance. Though, luckily perhaps, it also meant the other students did not understand his Annaren curses and insults.

  He thought of a class the day before, when he had been so bored he felt dizzy. Forgetting to stop himself, he had yawned uninhibitedly. The mentor Urbika, who was chanting in the Speech the First Song of Making, paused midline and fixed Hem with a piercing eye. It was a look comprised of irony, irritation, and compassion in equal parts, but Hem was oblivious to its subtleties. He was too busy picking sulkily at his sandals.

  "Minor Bard Cai, do the great mysteries of the Making bore you, perchance?" she inquired. The other children tittered, and turned to stare at Hem, who only slowly realized that Urbika was speaking to him. He looked up, and saw that the whole class was staring at him, bubbling with suppressed mirth.

  "Er, yes – I mean, no, yes, it does," he said, suddenly flustered, and burning with humiliation. Urbika had given him a long look, silenced the class with another, and said nothing more about it; but Hem brooded over that trivial incident for the rest of the day. Nobody laughed at him, nobody. One day he'd make them pay for it...

  A noise of which he had been half aware now forced itself into the forefront of Hem's reverie. Some kind of commotion was going on below his feet. He looked down through the leaves and saw a brawl of feathers on the ground, six or seven crows attacking something in their midst. Consumed by curiosity, he dropped from the branch to the ground, right next to the fight. The crows were so intent on their business that they didn't even notice him. He saw now that they were savagely pecking a white bird that had obviously given up on any idea of escape and was now vainly trying to hide its head under its wing. Blood spotted its feathers where the crows had torn its skin.

  Filled with a swift anger, Hem lifted his hand and cried out in the Speech, "Der ni, mulcharl Begone, carrion!"

  A blue bolt of lightning leaped from his fingers and hit the attacking crows, which screeched in surprise and dismay and flapped off in a stench of scorched feathers. Their victim lay on the grass surrounded by scattered white feathers with blood at their tips, its eyes closed, its breast heaving. Very gently Hem picked it up, feeling its body trembling in his hands. He involuntarily drew in his breath at the bird's lightness: underneath the feathers its body was so small, a mere scrap of life.

  Are you hurt, little one? he asked, in the Speech.

  At the sound of his voice the bird opened its eyes, and then almost immediately shut them again. Hem regretted he hadn't taken notice of the noise sooner; it was likely now the bird would die of shock. He cradled it against his chest, cupping his hands around its head to create a darkness, which at least might make the creature feel less afraid. Though no doubt it was past fear.

  He was thinking that it was probably time he left the garden when an angry cry came from the cloisters behind him. He started, and looked around wildly for a means of escape. A very large man in long green robes was running swiftly toward him, shouting in Suderain. The only quick way out was to swarm up the mango tree and drop down the other side of the wall, but Hem was hampered by the bird, and he didn't want to jolt it by moving quickly. He assessed his chances, cursing, and decided he had no choice but to stand his ground.

  When the man reached him, panting hard with both exertion and anger, he drew back his hand to cuff Hem across his head. The boy flinched and steeled himself for the blow, but the man stopped with his hand still high in the air and stared at him in astonishment and what seemed to be rising anger. Then came a flood of questions, of which Hem understood little, apart from the word Djella, which he knew meant Bard. Hem realized that the reason he hadn't been summarily punished was that the man had recognized the distinctive robes of a student at the Turbansk School. He smiled as ingratiatingly as he could, and said, every time the man paused for breath, "Saliman Turbansk de."

  The man gave Hem a skeptical look, and then grabbed him painfully by his earlobe and pulled him into the house. Hem concentrated on not falling over and hurting the bird he had rescued. He was propelled swiftly through wide hallways and shaded rooms smelling of sandalwood in which he caught glimpses of rich colors, glints of gold and crimson and azure. Finally he went through a large atrium. At the far end the man opened a huge bronze door and stepped out into the blinding sunlight of the street. For a moment Hem thought with relief that was the end of it, but the man still had an unrelenting grip on his ear. He was marched humiliatingly through the streets until they reached Saliman's house, which was thankfully not very far away. There his captor tolled the brass bell and waited stolidly until the door was answered.

  The bewildered minor Bard who opened the door was blasted with a flood of Suderain. She spread her hands to stop the flow, looking sharply at Hem, and appeared to invite the man in. The man shook his head, and she fled to find Saliman. Hem and his captor stood outside in the heat in complete silence for some time. Hem passed the wait staring at the front doorstep, his teeth set against the pain in his ear. The bird in his hands was still alive; he could feel its heart fluttering against his palm.

  At last Saliman came to the door. When he saw Hem his eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

  "Hem!" he said. "What have you been doing? Alimbar el Nad! Greetings!"

  The man, his sense of grievance exacerbated by the wait, poured
out his complaint. Saliman answered him in Suderain, and Hem stopped trying to follow the conversation. At least Alimbar had let go of him. He stood patiently, rubbing his ear with his free hand. It seemed Saliman was trying to invite Alimbar inside, while Alimbar insisted that he would not enter. After a few more exchanges the man seemed a little mollified, and finally he bowed to Saliman, who held open the door for him. Saliman turned to Hem and waved him in also. His eyes were hard.

  "You," he said in Annaren, "I will deal with later. I want you to go to your chamber, and to stay there."

  Hem, who had been totally unfussed by Alimbar's anger, quailed before Saliman's. He nodded meekly and scurried off.

  Back in his chamber, Hem carefully put the bird down on his bed. It gave a small squawk and then lay with its eyes shut, its breast heaving. Hem, who was familiar with birds, was puzzled: it was of some kind he did not know. It looked like a crow, but its plumage was white. It was obviously a fledgling, only just losing its baby fluff to adult feathers; its tail and wing feathers were stubby and short, and it had a scrawny, half-made look about it.

  Gently, Hem examined its injuries. He couldn't find any great damage, apart from a couple of savage tears in the flesh of its body and neck, but there could be internal hurts that he couldn't see. No bones seemed to be broken, and it wasn't bleeding freely anymore. What worried him most of all was the shock; birds could easily die of it. He looked around his room, and saw the chest in which he kept his spare clothes. He summarily threw his clothes onto the bed, spread a cloth he used for drying himself on the bottom of the chest, and gently placed the bird inside.

  There, little one, he murmured in the Speech. You are safe now.

  The bird made a soft peep, as if thanking him, and Hem closed the lid so it would feel safe in the dark. Then he worried that it might not have enough air, and stuffed a shirt under the chest's lid so it wouldn't close completely.

  If it was alive in an hour, he thought to himself, it would have a chance. In two hours, more of a chance. If it was alive tomorrow, it would definitely live.

  It would need water. He had a jug and a cup on his work-table, but no dish to put water in for the bird. He could get one easily enough from the kitchen, but he didn't dare leave his chamber; if Saliman arrived and Hem was not there, he would be even angrier with him. He would have to wait until Saliman turned up.

  He sat and fidgeted on his bed, wondering how Saliman would punish him for his latest escapade. Would he be thrown out of the Bardhouse? Hem uneasily considered the possibility: in his mind, it seemed quite likely. When he thought about it, there weren't many reasons for Saliman to keep him there; none of the other minor Bards liked Hem much; he was always getting into trouble, and he wasn't exactly shining in his classes...

  Within a short time, Hem's fear had turned into a certainty. Where could he go, if he didn't live with Saliman? He would have to live on the streets. Perhaps he could get work in the marketplace as a caller, carrying the goods for sale and telling of their virtues. He could be good at that... and then he remembered he couldn't speak Suderain. He would have to be a thief, then. He was good at stealing things. Though it would be more difficult than when he was a small boy: he was tall now, and in Turbansk his paler skin meant that he had lost the ability to go unnoticed in a crowd. He would head north then, and find Maerad – he could steal things along the way to feed himself. The only thing was, he would miss Saliman.

  And the other thing was Cadvan, Maerad's mentor. Hem admired Cadvan as much as he did Saliman, but he found Cadvan more forbidding. He remembered very well how stern the Bard could be. If Hem did find Maerad, he would find Cadvan as well, and Cadvan would likely be very cross with him... but, on the other hand, Maerad would speak up for him. Then all three of them could go on an adventure together.

  Hem brooded on his new future for a while, concocting an enjoyable fantasy in which his own heroic acts featured prominently, and then remembered the bird. It had been very quiet, and he was sure it must have died by now. When he opened the chest it was standing up, and it scuffled into a corner, trying to hide. Hem made some soothing noises, but didn't attempt to speak to it or lift it up. He noted that its beak wasn't gaping with thirst, which relieved his mind, and he gently shut the lid again.

  It seemed ages before he heard steps in the corridor and a knock on the door. There was a pause, while Hem braced himself for a telling off and wondered why the door remained shut, and then Saliman said, "Hem? May I come in?"

  Hem still wasn't used to these courtesies. "Yes, yes, come in," he said breathlessly, as he scrambled for the door and opened it.

  Saliman stood in the corridor dressed in the red robes of a Turbansk Bard. His long black hair was tied back from his face in an intricate pattern of braids, and a golden brooch in the shape of a sunburst was pinned on his shoulder. He looked, Hem thought – glancing nervously at his dark face – not quite so cross as he might; surely that was the ghost of a smile haunting his lips. But maybe not...

  Saliman was in fact looking in astonishment at the mess of clothes piled on Hem's bed. "I hope, Hem, that you are not thinking of running away?" he said, picking up a blue tunic.

  Hem gulped. "No," he said. "I – I had to put the bird somewhere."

  Saliman turned to face him, his face expressionless. "Bird?" he said.

  "It was hurt. And they need a dark place, so they're not frightened. So I..." He faltered and stopped. Perhaps putting injured birds in clothes chests was not allowed in Bardhouses.

  "Yes?"

  "So I put it in the chest..." He gestured vaguely toward the other side of the room. "But I took all my clothes out first. So they wouldn't be dirtied. I didn't think it would be wrong," he added hastily, putting on his most virtuous expression, although whether his clothes remained clean wasn't something that ever bothered Hem. "I just wanted to help the bird."

  Saliman stood very still, looking searchingly at Hem. Then he sat down on Hem's bed and rested his brow in his hands in a gesture of despair that made Hem grin despite himself, although he took care to straighten his face when Saliman looked up.

  "Hem," he said at last. "Do you have any idea whose garden you entered today?" Hem shook his head.

  "I have just had a very long and very boring conversation with Alimbar el Nad. He is a consul of the Ernan of Turbansk, and is fifth in authority to the Ernani herself. It seems that he found you in his private courtyard, which he keeps expressly for his own use. Not even his servants are allowed there. And yet you seem more worried about whether or not your clothes are soiled..." He shook his head. "What were you doing there?"

  Hem studied his feet closely. He wasn't going to admit that he was stealing mangoes if no one had accused him; he would be thrown out for sure. Saliman sighed heavily and stood up.

  "After a great many courtesies and sweetmeats, and after offering to place the spell of bounty on his house, a most exhausting and complicated charm, I may add, and also promising that I would whip you soundly, I managed to soothe him. Alimbar is a hasty and impatient man, quick to take offense – and to give it, truth be told. I had to swallow my pride at least three times, and that goes hard for Saliman of Turbansk. But you almost caused a most difficult friction between the School of Turbansk and the Court, and it could not be worse timed."

  Hem stared at the floor until his eyes burned, only half comprehending what Saliman was saying.

  "Hem," Saliman continued gravely "I am very angry with you, and I ought to punish you. But, to be honest, I don't believe it would make anything better than it is. So I will not be whipping you. Although perhaps that is merely to save what little shred of my pride remains."

  "So you're not going to send me away?" Despite himself, Hem's voice wavered.

  Saliman looked surprised. "Send you away? Whether you stay here or not is your decision, Hem, not mine. No, I would not send you away."

  Hem gave an involuntary sigh of relief. He was not afraid of being whipped, although no one had beaten him since he
had met Maerad, and perhaps he had lost some of his old toughness. But now Saliman was standing with his back to him, looking out of the window. He was silent for a long time, and Hem began to feel ashamed of himself.

  "I'm sorry," he mumbled, when the silence had stretched out too long.

  "But are you, Hem?" asked Saliman, turning around. "Are you really sorry? It is not enough to say so, and then to do the same thing again."

  Now Saliman's face was very serious, and a fluttering started in the boy's stomach. When Saliman was happy with him, Hem felt exultant, but his displeasure hurt more than any whipping. Saliman was one of the few human beings he wholeheartedly respected, and there was an unsettling power in Saliman's dark gaze, which seemed to see without prejudice or fear through any dissembling.

  "Well?" Saliman's voice was gentle, but within it was a strength like steel.

  "I am sorry," said Hem, a little more clearly. "I don't mean to cause trouble."

  Saliman sighed again, and sat back down on the bed, patting the cushions beside him. "Sit down, Hem. Tell me, are you very unhappy?"

  Hem blinked at the unexpectedness of the question. He had not spoken to Saliman about his feelings. He opened his mouth to answer, and then shut it again.

  "Urbika tells me you are not making friends," said Saliman. "And she says you are struggling with the Suderain language, which can't help."

  Despite himself, Hem blushed. He didn't like the thought that people were observing him like that. He struggled with himself. He had longed for the chance to pour out his heart to Saliman, to tell him all his troubles. Saliman would understand his constant nightmares, his fears, the difficulties he had talking to people, how he hated the other minor Bards. He knew that Saliman would not judge him. But now that the chance had come, it was as if his jaws were sewn together with wire.

  "I miss Maerad," he said at last.

  "That, alas, is a wound I cannot heal," said Saliman gently. "Although I can perhaps help with other things." There was another long silence.