I rubbed my forehead as I caught the heat of Maram's fear. Of course, Mesh is famed for the ferociousness of its huge, brown bears, which had driven the much gentler black bears into gentler lands such as Delu ages ago.
'If the Brothers don't expel you and you stay with us long enough, Asaru said, you'll see plenty of bears.'
'But I thought the bears kept mosty to the mountains.'
'Well, where do you think you are?'Asaru said, sweeping his hand out toward the snow-capped peaks all around us.
In truth, we stood in the Valley of the Swans, largest and loveliest o Mesh's valley.
Here the Kurash flowed through gentle terrain into Lake Waskaw. Here there were other lakes, too, where the swans came each spring to hatch their young and swim through clear blue waters.
But across the valley twenty miles due east, Mount Eluru stood like a vast pyramid of granite and ice. Beyond it were still greate peaks of the Culhadosh Range, which separates the kingdoms of Wass and
Mesh. In the distance to the south forffcfive miles as a raven flies, was the hazy wall of the Itarsu in whose narrow passes my ancestors had more than once slaughtered invading Sarni armies from the great gray plains beyond. Behind us above the hills from where we had ridden that day, just to the west of the bear-infested woods that we proposed to enter, were three of the greatest and most beautiful peaks of the Central Range: Telshar, Arakel and Vayu. These were the mountains of my soul; here, I thought, was the heart of the Morning Mountains and possibly of all Ea. As a boy I had played in their forests and sung songs to their silent, stony faces. They rose up like gods just beyond the houses and battlements of Silvassu: the shining Vayu a few miles to the south, Arakel west just across the swift Kurash river, and Telshar the Great on whose lower slopes my grandfather's grandfathers had built the Elahad castle. Once I had climbed this luminous mountain. From the summit, looking north, I had seen Raaskel and Korukel glittering beyond the Diamond River, and beyond these guardian peaks, the cold white mountains of Ishka. But, of course, all my life I have tried not to look in that direction.
Now Maram followed the line of Asaru's outstretched hand. He looked into the dark, waiting forest and muttered, 'Ah, where am I, indeed? Lost, lost, truly lost.'
At that moment, as if in answer to some silent supplication of Maram's, there came the slow clip-dop of a horse's hooves. I turned to see a white-haired man leading a draft horse across the field straight toward us. He wore a patch over his right eye and walked with a severe limp as if his knee had been smashed with a mace or a flail.
I knew that I had seen this old farmer before, but I couldn't quite remember where.
'Hello, lads,' he said as he drew up to us. 'It's a fine day for hunting, isn't it?'
Maram took in the farmer's work-stained woolens, which smelled of horse manure and pigs. He wrinkled up his fat nose disdainfully. But Asaru, who had a keener eye, immediately saw the ring glittering on the farmer's gnarled finger, and so did I. It was a plain silver ring set with four brilliant diamonds: the ring of a warrior and a lord at that.
'Lord Harsha,' Asaru said, finally recognizing him, 'it's been a long time.'
'Yes, it has,' Lord Harsha said. He looked at Asaru's squire, and then at Maram and me. 'Who are your friends?'
'Excuse me,' Asaru said. 'May I present Joshu Kadar of Lashku?'
Lord Harsha nodded his head at my brother's squire and told him. 'Your father is a fine man. We fought against Waas together.'
Young Joshu bowed deeply as befit his rank, and then stood silently basking in Lord Harsha's compliment. 'And this,' Asaru continued, ' is Prince Maram Marshayk of Delu. He's a student of the Brothers.'
Lord Harsha peered out at him with his single eye and said, 'Isn't it true that the Brothers don't hunt animals?'
'Ah, that is true,' Maram said, gripping his bow, 'we hunt knowledge. You see, I've come along only to protect my friend in case we run into any bears.'
Now Lord Harsha turned his attention toward me, and looked back and forth between me and my brother. The light of his eye bore into my forehead like the rays of the sun.
'You must be Valashu Elahad' he said.
Just then Maram's face reddened in anger on my behalf. I knew that he didn't approve of the Valari system of honors and rank. It must have galled him that an old man of no noble blood, a mere farmer, could outrank a prince.
I looked down at the ring I wore around my finger. In It was set neither the four diamonds of a lord nor the three of a master – nor even the two sparkling stones of a full knight. A single diamond stood out against the silver: the ring of a simple warrior.
In truth, I was lucky to have won it. If not for some skills with the sword and bow that my father had taught me, I never would have. What kind of warrior hates war?
How is it that a Valari knight – or rather, a man who only dreamed of being a knight – should prefer playing the flute and writing poetry to trials of arms with his brothers and countrymen?
Lord Harsha smiled grimly at me and said,' It's been a long time since you've come to these woods, hasn't it?'
'Yes, sir, it has,' I said.
'Well, you should have paid your respects before trampling over my fields. Young people have no manners these days.'
'My apologies, sir, but we were in a hurry. You see, we got a late start.'
I didn't explain that our hunting expedition had been delayed for an hour while I searched the castle for Maram – only to find him in bed with one of my father's chambermaids.
'Yes, very late.' Lord Harsha said looking up at the sun.' The Ishkans have already been here before you.'
'Which Ishkans?' I asked in alarm. I noticed that Asaru was now staring off info the woods intently.
'They didn't stop to present themselves either,' Lord Harsha said. 'But there were five of them -I heard them bragging tbey were going to take a bear.'
At this news, Maram gripped his bow even more tightly. Beads of sweat formed up among the brown curls of hair across his forehead. He said, 'Well, then – I suppose we should leave these woods to them.'
But Asaru only smiled as if Maram had suggested abandoning all of Mesh to the enemy. He said, ' The Ishkans like to hunt bears. Well, it's a big wood, and they've had more than an hour to become lost in it.' 'Please see to it that you don't become lost as well.' Lord Harsha said.
'My brother,' Asaru said, looking at me strangely, 'is more at home in the woods than in his own castle. We won't get lost.'
'Good. Then good luck hunting.' Lord Harsha nodded his head at me in a curt bow.
'Are you after a bear this time, too?'
'No, a deer,' I said. 'As we were the last time we came here.'
'But you found a bear all the same.'
'It might be more accurate to say the bear found us'
Now Maram's knuckles grew white around his bow, and he looked at me with wide-open eyes. 'What do you mean a bear found you?'
Because I didn't want to tell him the story, I stood there looking off into the woods in silence. And so Lord Harsha answered for me.
'It was ten years ago,' he said. 'Lord Asaru had just received his knight's ring, and Val must have been what – eleven? Ten?'
'Ten.' I told him.
'That's right,' Lord Harsha said, nodding his head. 'And so the lads went into the woods alone after their deer. And then the bear -'
'Was it a large bear?' Maram interrupted.
Lord Harsha's single eye narrowed as he admonished Maram to silence as he might a child. And then he continued the story: 'And so the bear attacked them. It broke Lord Asaru's arm and some ribs. And mauled Valashu, as you can see.'
Here he paused to point his old finger at the scar on my forehead.
