22

“I GUESSED THAT you and your friends were seditioners or escapees from a Councilfarm,” Swallow went on. “I do not ask you to tell me if I am right. Yet, when next we meet, there will be no lies between us.”

“Next time …?”

He held up a hand. “Let that rest for a moment.” He lowered his hand and hesitated, as if trying to frame what he would say in words. “You asked why I include you in the ancient promises. Know that there are those among my people with the sight—an ancient power passed down from the first D’rekta—which sometimes allows those who possess it to see what will happen before it comes to pass.”

Futuretelling? His eyes caught my involuntary movement, and he stopped, but I said nothing.

“This is a strange power and perhaps a fearsome thing. My people do not invoke it lightly, for if it were known, those possessing it would be burned. One of my people with such power told of Iriny’s capture. When I returned from Guanette, the same seer told me that Iriny would be brought safe to Sutrium by those who held her, but he could not tell if she would return safely to us. So I waited and set those I trusted to watch for you and your wagon. They saw nothing.

“Then, one night, a voice spoke in my dreams, such as the first D’rekta heard, telling me that if I were to find Iriny, I must go at a certain moment to a certain market.”

From the edge of my sight, I saw Maire gape at him and understood this was as much news to her as to me.

He looked at her. “You know I am no seer, Maire, and so it seemed madness to obey a dream voice. Yet there was such power in it that it was not in me to disobey. When I came where the voice had bidden me, I saw you, Elaria, dressed as a boy, with a Landgirl, buying birds. I meant to speak with you when I rode after you, but you outrode me.”

The gypsy’s face was pale and tense, his eyes looking inward, dark with wonder.

“The voice spoke again into my dreams that night, sending me to another market, lest all promises be broken. That is exactly the words I dreamed: ‘lest all promises be broken.’ What could it mean but the ancient Twentyfamilies promises? I obeyed and so came to find you being whipped. ‘Save her,’ the dream voice had told me. ‘She is everything to you.’ ”

We stared at one another. I thought my expression must mirror his, pale and shocked. Two people, I thought, sent out by seers to find each other. There was a terrifying symmetry in it.

“I obeyed the voice because … such voices of power speak for higher reasons than to save the life of one man or a girl—even if horses do bend knee to her or become lame in her aid.” I felt myself flush.

He nodded gravely, as if my silence was an answer to something. “I obeyed, too, because it ill behooved me to disobey; I, who must someday carry the weight of the ancient promises of the Twentyfamilies, for they are also matters of high destiny.”

I wanted to laugh to bring us down from such heights, but his expression was deadly serious and forbade such cowardly evasion. And a voice inside asked me who I was, of all people, to sneer at his talk of destiny and high things. Was not my own life ruled by the very incomprehensible mystic forces he was striving to name?

“Last night, as I held your arm and made the tattoo, I knew that the time of the ancient promises foretold by the first D’rekta draws near.” He looked to Maire.

The healer paled. “Can it be so?”

“I saw a vision,” he said. “I saw this girl speak the words of the ancient promises in the place where first they were made.”

“No,” I whispered, backing away. Not again, I thought incredulously, fearfully. Not another mysterious fatebinding. First the Agyllians had bound me to their quests, and then the beastkindred claimed me for their legends. And now the gypsies wished to chain me with their ancient promises?

Surely it could only be Atthis’s doing? Why had she seen fit to let Swallow believe I was connected to these ancient promises? So that she could use him, just as she used Gahltha and Maruman’s belief in beastlegends to make them watch over me?

“Do not fear this,” Swallow said. “I will stand by your side when that day comes. I feel the weight of that meeting across my soul and across the fatepath of the Twentyfamilies like a great, heavy shadow.”

Something burned in the gypsy’s face that frightened me, for it told that he truly believed his words, and believing a thing so passionately must bring it to pass.

“This is madness,” I said, but even to my own ears the words lacked conviction.

“Do not fear it,” Swallow said. “I will consult the seer again, and perhaps when next we meet, I will know better what is to come. And we will meet again—sooner than you think—and I will stand at your side in battle.”

He glanced around. Here and there, people had begun to emerge from their wagons to stir their cooking fires, for the sun had risen, not bright and red as on the day before but wanly, veiled in gray cloud. I saw this as from a great distance.

“The green begins to stir though it is early, for this day we of the Twentyfamilies go from Sutrium. You should leave now, before full light. People are more inquisitive under the sun’s honest glare.” He took up the little jeweled cup and offered it. “Will you drink before we part?”

My skin rose into gooseflesh. Learn what Swallow means, Maryon had charged me. Or Atthis. Well, I had done that, and perhaps this toast was part of it. I felt powerless to resist the fey forces that seemed to drive this man as much as they drove me.

I shivered and reached out to take the cup, drinking a little sip of the bittersweet elixir. He took it from my cold fingers, leaning near. “Have courage, girl. Never did I dream that I would live in such a time and, even less, that I would be part of the ancient promises, yet so it must be. There is great honor in such a fate.”

There was a wild joy in his eyes that frightened me as much as anything he had said. An exalted recklessness.

“Come,” Maire said briskly. “Before you go, let me look at the whip marks to see how they are healing.”

She had stood apart from us during the matter of the drinks, as if she did not want to hear what passed between us. I was relieved at her words, for they brought me back to earth and freed me from the searing radiance of Swallow’s face.

I rose to face the old woman, composing myself. “The scars are healed already, thanks to your salve.”

Maire snorted, so I turned and lifted my shirt to show her. There was a long curious silence, and I craned my neck to see the tiny woman. My heart bumped against my rib cage at the look on her face.

“What … what is it?”

She let my shirt fall, her expression bland. “Nothing. You are right. The whip marks have healed.”

I searched her face, but there was nothing of the amazement I had seen a moment before. I had imagined it, perhaps. After all, why would the mere sight of my back healed by her own potions give rise to such a look?

“I … I’d better go,” I said to her. “I hope Iriny recovers completely.” I turned to Swallow, forcing myself to meet his eyes, their black longing. “I do not think we will meet again, but I thank you for this.” I touched my arm gingerly. “I swear that I will be careful and sparing in my use of it, and that no harm will come to you because of it. Goodbye.”

He bowed. “I will say only this: ride safe, for whether you believe it or no, we will meet again.”

Gahltha made no comment as I climbed into the wagon, though he had been privy to much of what had taken place. I had felt the light touch of his mind several times through the night.

Well, why would he object? I thought somewhat bitterly. He, too, believed I was part of higher matters and relished his own role in them. Too bad that I had no choice.

As we passed from the green, I glanced back through the forest of wagons to Maire’s elaborate rig. Neither she nor Swallow were to be seen, and even as I watched, the last ragged flame from the fire, into which I had stared for so many hours, flickered and died in the rising wind.

Threading through the streets back to the safe house, I was certain that the voice that had summoned Swallow to my aid belonged to the Agyllian elder, Atthis. But did the birds always act in such secretive ways? Why not come to my mind and warn me? I thought of the tattoo I have been given and wondered if the Agyllians had any knowledge about the design since it featured them.

Only when Gahltha came to a halt did I start awake and realize we were back at the safe house. I was so fatigued that I had actually fallen asleep sitting up.

In fact, I still felt tired; this puzzled me. I always seemed to be tired lately, as if there was some hidden but constant drain on my energies.

Gahltha almost ran the wagon headlong into Matthew, who was coming out the gate at a breakneck pace mounted on Jaygar. I braked the wagon, and the rig slewed to a halt.

“Where have ye been?” Matthew cried, his accent thicker than usual. “I were about to go out lookin’ fer ye.”

I stared at him wearily, too tired to be bothered with his histrionics. “I have been with the gypsies. You knew that.”

I brought the wagon properly into the yard and climbed down to release Gahltha from the harness. He did not trot away but turned to nuzzle at me.

“Elspeth, it’s Dragon …” Matthew slid clumsily down from Jaygar’s back.

“What is it?” I asked. “Has she run off again?”

“She … she were complainin’ that her head hurt earlier.…” Matthew passed a shaking hand over his eyes as if to erase a nightmare.

Suddenly I was wide awake. “Tell me.”

He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, tears spilled down his cheeks.

I swung around and ran into the shed and upstairs to the safe house.

“Dragon!” I yelled, slamming open the door. “Dragon, where are you?”

Kella emerged from the healing hall, her face grave and sorrowful. “Inside,” she said.

Dragon lay on the mattress nearest the door. The gypsy had occupied the same bed, and it was as if one pale corpse had been exchanged for another. The empath-coercer’s red-gold hair lay like frozen flames over the pillow.

“What happened to her?” I whispered.

Kella shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. She and Matthew were arguing. I heard a thump; then Matthew burst out of the kitchen yelling that Dragon had fainted.”

“She fainted?” I cried. “Is that all? You scared the living daylights out of me! Matthew met me at the gate as if someone had been killed.”

“Elspeth, you don’t understand,” Kella said. “This is no ordinary sleep. Dragon has fallen into a coma. I can’t reach her!”